Know your Rebel rematch: Ole Miss

Five Takeaways From The Last Game

Here are five things to remember from Ole Miss' 64-49 win over Mizzou on January 12.

1. Ole Miss' offense didn't play that well. The Rebels won by 15 points while averaging just 0.97 points per possession, a pretty poor total considering how iffy Mizzou's defense has been in 2013. They didn't shoot very well, and Mizzou handled them on the defensive glass for the most part. Mizzou's offense was just egregious, however. The Tigers averaged just 0.79 points per possession, which is basically what the worst cupcakes average against Missouri. The Tigers shot 11% from 3-point range and, without Laurence Bowers, were not that strong on the offensive glass. Mizzou's recent offensive improvement will need to continue, but it won't matter if Ole Miss also progresses beyond its mean.

2. Ball-handling: Yuck. Mizzou had nine assists to 19 turnovers and lost the ball control battle badly. Phil Pressey had five assists and five turnovers, and nobody else picked up the ball-handling slack. Jabari Brown, Earnest Ross and Negus Webster-Chan each had three turnovers, and Alex Oriakhi had two.

3. Murphy Holloway and Reginald Buckner were men. The Ole Miss duo scored 22 points (all from Holloway) on 8-for-17 shooting, and they grabbed 18 boards (10 from Buckner), six on offense; they made Alex Oriakhi (23 minutes, four points) a non-factor. Tony Criswell was not full-strength yet, and he did manage six points and two boards in 14 minutes, but Ole Miss won the battle inside against a team that was not used to losing that battle.

4. Bad Earnest/Jabari. Not only did Ross and Brown combine for six turnovers, they also made just five of 20 shots from the field, two of 11 from 3-point range. Ole Miss allows you to take a lot of 3-pointers if you want. Mizzou made just two of 18.

5. No Bowers. This was Missouri's first game without Laurence Bowers after he sprained his MCL versus Alabama. It showed. The offense was listless and desperate. It has improved since then (Jabari Brown's output especially) and obviously has quite a bit more potential with Bowers back, but again, Mizzou's offense will have to improve more than Ole Miss', and both are likely to improve.

Ole Miss Rebels (18-4)
Since Last Time:

Ken Pomeroy Stats

Where the Rebels are weakest

They do suffer some glitches on the defensive glass, which is especially odd considering the size and activity level of Buckner and Holloway. Mizzou was unable to exploit that the first time around, but Bowers' return, and the fact that the game is at Mizzou Arena, should help that. They also don't shoot particularly well, but they rebound well enough to get away with it. Controlling the glass will help Mizzou's cause dramatically.

Where they are best

They leverage you into pretty bad shots on defense, and they pressure you and turn you over a decent amount. On offense, they don't shoot amazingly well, but they get away with it because a) they rebound pretty well on that side of the floor, b) they draw a lot of fouls (though their bigs tend to miss their FTs), and c) they get a shot on every possession because they never turn the ball over (and Mizzou never forces turnovers).

Ole Miss' Season Since Last Time

• Wins (Team Rank is from KenPom.com)
  No. 48 Missouri (64-49)
  No. 62 Arkansas (76-64)
  No. 105 Tennessee (62-56)
  at No. 144 Auburn (63-61)
  at No. 150 Vanderbilt (89-79, OT)
  No. 228 Mississippi State (93-75)
• Losses
  at No. 1 Florida (64-78)
  No. 17 Kentucky (74-87)

The Rebels have done well enough to probably make the NCAA tournament, but they did struggle against three iffy teams (Tennessee, Auburn, Vanderbilt) and didn't look amazing in their two games versus good teams (Florida, Kentucky). Not that Missouri has done any better, of course.

Ole Miss Player Stats Since Last Time

* AdjGS = a take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds. It redistributes a team's points based not only on points scored, but also by giving credit for assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls. It is a stat intended to determine who had the biggest overall impact on the game itself, instead of just how many balls a player put through a basket.

• Highest Usage%: Henderson (30%), Holloway (24%), Summers (23%)
• Highest Floor%: Holloway (39%), Buckner (38%), Summers (38%)
• Highest %Pass: Summers (60%), Williams (58%), White (31%)
• Highest %Shoot: Jones (55%), White (54%), Henderson (48%)
• Highest %Fouled: Jones (30%), Holloway (22%), Buckner (20%)
• Highest %T/O: Jones (15%), Buckner (10%), Holloway (9%)
• Henderson dominates the show, for better or worse. And in SEC play, it's been more "better" than "worse." And as we learned in Oxford, he is eminently hateable, which is fun.
• This is in no way a deep team, and if players like Buckner and Summers get into foul trouble (which has happened at times), they could suffer. So uh, get them into foul trouble.

Keys to the Game

1. Win on the glass. Good rebounding wouldn't have saved Missouri with the way the Tigers were shooting in Oxford, but it's hard to derive an overall advantage against Ole Miss if you don't beat them on the boards. Alex Oriakhi did not fare well at Ole Miss, and the Holloway/Buckner combination is a little bigger than Laurence Bowers would prefer to handle, but ... Mizzou needs to find a way to not get manhandled here.
   
   
2. Good Flip. It's probably kind of key from this point forward, huh? As Phil Pressey goes, so goes this team. I think he has caught far too much flack for his failings of late, but there's no question that there have been too many failings, and because he is Mizzou's quarterback, it's going to get noticed. But with the way Mizzou got trounced in the ball handling battle in Oxford, Flip simply has to have a decent game.
   
   
3. Home love. The crowd at Ole Miss was not that large, but it was salty and effective. Mizzou is a team lacking in confidence a bit right now, and the home crowd will need to get involved. If Mizzou can go on a couple of runs, get out in transition, and play solid, aggressive basketball (i.e. draw fouls and score some free points), the crowd should respond well. While Ole Miss has indeed won on the road (something Mizzou can't say this year), the Rebels did need overtime to beat Vandy and only beat Auburn by two, and they fared only marginally better at Florida (they were down 23 with 12 minutes left before cutting the final margin to 14). Like Missouri, they are not nearly the same team away from home. And they're away from home. Make them play like it.
   

Prediction

Ken Pomeroy projects a 78-76 Mizzou win, and because of Mizzou's silly home-road splits (and what should be a fiery atmosphere), I'm a little more confident than that. I'll say Mizzou wins something like 83-74. It's funny to say that given how much confidence I don't have in this squad overall right now, but the gut says this is a game Missouri wins, even if that's mainly because of Mizzou Arena.