Ole Miss has the second most experienced team in college basketball this season, after coach Chris Beard hit the transfer portal hard and brought in a lot of veteran, savvy defenders and scorers who average 3.41 years in the game.
BYU has one of the least experienced teams in the country, ranking 170th in that category, with average experience of 1.7 years.
That discrepancy was very apparent in the final minutes of Thursday’s opening-round game in the Rady Children’s Hospital Invitational in San Diego, as the Rebels made all the big plays down the stretch and in overtime to roll to a 96-85 win in front of a pro-BYU crowd at LionTree Arena.
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“We knew it was going to be a physical, tough game coming into it,” BYU coach Kevin Young told the BYU Sports Radio Network. “They are a well-coached team that gets after it. We had a shot to win it there in regulation, and kinda ran out of gas down the stretch.”
This one is going to sting for awhile for BYU (5-1), which had a 75-71 lead and the ball with under two minutes to play. At least it will until 1:30 p.m. MST Friday when the Cougars will face North Carolina State in the third-place game.
In the championship game, No. 23 Ole Miss will meet No. 13 Purdue, which downed the Wolfpack 71-61 in the other opening-round game.
“We gotta flush it,” Young said. “We got a quick turnaround. We will digest this one in short order.”
Trevin Knell and Egor Demin sandwiched 3-pointers around an Ole Miss jumper and the Cougars led by four and were in outstanding shape to get the win over the SEC foe when Dre Davis missed a pair of free throws.
But Demin’s ill-advised pass with 1:55 remaining was picked off by Sean Pedulla, and the Cougars were forced to foul at the other end to prevent a layup. After Richie Saunders missed a 3-pointer, the Rebels tied it off an offensive rebound. Davis’ bucket knotted the score at 75-75.
Saunders made two free throws with 38 seconds remaining to give the Cougars a 77-75 lead but player-of-the-game JuJu Murray made a driving layup over Saunders with 25 seconds left.
The Cougars had a chance to win it at the end of regulation, but Fouss Traore’s jumper wasn’t close after the Cougars’ sturdy senior had dominated the second half.
“We said one of the keys to the game was going to be the possession battle. They ended up plus six or seven on that,” Young said. “That turnover … was probably the game. Unfortunate, and we will have to learn from it and move on.”
BYU finished with 17 turnovers, which Ole Miss turned into 23 points. The Cougars turned nine Ole Miss giveaways into 13 points.
Basically, Ole Miss upped the on-ball pressure and defensive physicality, and BYU didn’t respond in kind. The Rebels went 29 of 36 from the free-throw line, BYU 21 of 26.
“Just the experience, the physicality, learning what that is like (will help BYU in the future),” Young said. “When you got bigger, stronger, athletes up underneath you, and what that does to you. It speeds you up.
“We haven’t really been a turnover team this year so far. And the first time we faced a physical defense we turned it over 17 times. So we will have to get better there.”
BYU scored just one point — on a Demin free throw — during its first four possessions of overtime, and that was that. Murray simply took over for Ole Miss, and finished with a career-high 28 points.
BYU freshman Kanon Catchings was on fire early, going 4 of 4 from 3-point range, and the Cougars jumped out to a 35-25 lead with just over six minutes remaining in the first half.
Then BYU had a five-minute field goal drought, allowing Ole Miss to get back in it. Turnovers also hurt the Cougars in the first half, as 10 BYU giveaways resulted in 18 points off turnovers for the Rebels in the first 20 minutes.
Mihailo Boskovic hit a 3-pointer with a minute left in the half to give BYU a 42-39 lead at the break. Although Ole Miss made five more field goals in the first half than BYU, the Cougars were able to get out in front by hitting 7 of 18 3-pointers and going 11 of 12 from the free-throw line.
Demin struggled in the first half, committing three turnovers and going 0 of 3 from beyond the arc. He played better in the second half, and finished with 16 points, four assists and three rebounds. But when the Cougars really needed a big play in the final two minutes and the first few minutes of overtime before the game got away from them, they didn’t have a candidate step up.
It was similar to the start of the second half, when BYU misfired on its first three possessions and Ole Miss moved out to a 59-52 lead with 10 minutes remaining.
“We kinda got away from who we are in that early part of the second half when we got down and we kinda had to regroup our guys in a timeout and get back to how we want to play,” Young said, noting that Demin and Dallin Hall were on the court together for the first time this season, with Hall having returned from a toe injury just last week.
“We are a work in progress. I look forward to seeing our guys’ response tomorrow,” Young concluded.
