McCready: Rebels may still have some magic left in them
OXFORD, Miss. – Sebastian Saiz played just 13 minutes before fouling out.
Stefan Moody made just four of 17 shots from the floor and missed all seven of his 3-point attempts.
Ole Miss easily defeated Arkansas anyway, 76-60.
“Our team’s maturing a little bit,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said.
The Rebels are definitely doing that. The question is: Is it too late?
“There are no more excuses for us,” said forward Tomasz Gielo, who scored 15 points and added five rebounds and two steals against Arkansas. “We’ve got everybody back. Our team is healthy relatively. Everybody’s available to play. Now it’s time for us to step up and make that run when it matters. There’s no time to make calculations for us. We’re in a position where every game either brings us closer to the NCAA tournament, which is ultimately our goal, or takes us completely out of the picture.”
Ole Miss improved to 16-9 overall and 6-6 in the Southeastern Conference Saturday afternoon. The Rebels have six regular season games left, starting with Tuesday’s date at Texas A&M. Then there’s the SEC tournament next month in Nashville. Realistically, Ole Miss has little _ or no _ margin for error.
“You think that one game may not matter in the long run but every game’s going to matter,” Gielo said. “…You can’t look back. You have to look at what’s in front of you.”
There are reasons for optimism. Gielo is scoring. So is Anthony Perez, who scored 11 points Saturday, hitting three of four shots from behind the arc. Donte Fitzpatrick-Dorsey scored six points off the bench in 16 minutes. Martavious Newby scored six in 35 minutes and played a key role in Ole Miss’ solid second-half defensive effort. Marcanvis Hymon played 28 bench minutes and scored 10 points to go with 11 rebounds.
“We held them to 18 percent in the second half, played the entire half in man and there was a huge discrepancy on the glass (47-29 in favor of the Rebels), which shows we were really engaged,” Kennedy said. “Mentally, the stat that jumps off the page that says, ‘Hey, we were locked in and maybe we are serious about trying to make a run down the stretch’ is we go 21 for 22 from the free throw line. That shows we’re locked in mentally.”
Rasheed Brooks, who has been the Rebels’ No. 2 or 3 scorer, failed to score in 20 minutes Saturday. He’ll make shots down the road. So will Moody. Saiz will get better as he shakes off the rust.
“We’ve shown spurts. I would like, collectively, us to shoot the ball like we did in the second half (Saturday),” Kennedy said. “I would like to continue to win the effort areas, make free throws and get back to where we can play man-to-man along with some of the other zones. …If we can do all of those things and play healthy down the stretch, I think we have a chance in every game we’ll be in.”
Gielo agrees. If they’re right, maybe this season still has some magic left in it.
“When we have other guys step up, now the other team has to scratch their head and think, ‘What do we have to do now? How can we stop these guys?’” Gielo said. “The best teams are the teams that are not one-way teams. We can’t just say, ‘Hey, let’s win this game by having Stefan go for 40.’ He can do that, but what matters is can everybody else step up and not just get points but get rebounds. Can somebody get a stop on defense or get a steal when it matters? Those are little things that will help our team in the long run.”