TJ’s Takeaway’s: What We Learned From Ole Miss’ 90-64 Loss at Tennessee

OXFORD, Miss. — No. 22 Ole Miss suffered its first defeat of the season against Tennessee Saturday night in Knoxville. The No. 5-ranked Volunteers put on an offensive performance that led to the 90-64 win over the visiting Rebels.

With the loss, Ole Miss is now 13-1 on the year and 0-1 in SEC play. The first half was a physical battle full of big play after big play before Tennessee began to pull away in the second half. The Rebels had a trio of players score in double figures. They were led by Jaemyn Brakefield who added a team high 22 points in the contest, followed by Jaylen Murray with 11 and Allen Flanigan with 10. (Click here for box score.)

This series, TJ’s Takeaways, is here to help identify things that really stand out from the games, things you may not be able to find from a box score. If you’re looking for a recap of the game, don’t worry we’ve got you covered. Check it out HERE.

Now let’s get into the takeaway’s.

It wasn’t pretty, but it can be incredibly valuable

It was very unlikely that Ole Miss was going to go undefeated this season. While this game would have elevated the perception of this program with a victory, this loss has value. This Rebel team has a lot of talent on it. At the end of the day, this will be a Q1 loss and having any loss in Q1 won’t knock a team too much.

This loss will show Ole Miss where it can improve and where to focus. It also gives the Rebels something to look back on — a game that can sit in their minds as they go through the rest of SEC play as one that they want back and one they want to prove wasn’t really them.

Chris Beard is a really good basketball coach. He, his staff and players will watch this film as a team, see what happened and work to make adjustments. While a win would have been great and a close loss would have been good, there could be worse things than a team suffering its first loss on the road to the preseason SEC favorite while still finding its way.

Tennessee took advantage of what now is a major problem for Ole Miss

It’s been written about before — on the season (prior to this game), Ole Miss gave up an average of 12.5 offensive rebounds per game. Against Tennessee, the Rebels gave up 19. Tennessee won the rebounding battle 47-24 (+23). The Vols capitalized and scored 22 points on second chances.

Ole Miss did relatively well limiting this in the first half as Tennessee only had 5 offensive rebounds in the opening half. The Vols converted to add five second chance points. The second half, however, was a different story. It was a big part of the reason for Tennessee’s explosion to open up this game.

A lot of people will want to pin this on the Ole Miss big men. However, this is a team effort. While Tennesse big Jonas Aidoo grabbed five offensive rebounds, Josiah Jordan-James added four, Zakai Ziegler grabbed two. The effort for defensive rebounding needs to be team-wide for Ole Miss. The guards will have to help out more on this and it may limit the transition game where Ole Miss excels, but Chris Beard’s group has to find a solution to this.

Tennessee took 30 threes tonight and that creates longer rebounds. Both these teams excel at pushing opponents out. The Vols crashed the glass hard but other teams will now look to do the same against Ole Miss. Part of the issue will be physicality; Tennessee really brought it to Ole Miss tonight, and the Rebels didn’t quite match up to it. The Rebels’ staff will watch the tape and make adjustments.

How will Ole Miss handle pressure?

The Vols will be one of the best defensive teams Ole Miss plays all season. Memphis will too. The Rebels played this game against a physical, disciplined Tennessee team in front of a sellout crowd in Knoxville. The pressure was there — whether it be from the swarming defense of Rick Barnes’s team or the crowd’s roar, Ole Miss felt it.

One of the more noticeable areas for this was on the offensive side of the ball. Again, Tennessee deserves all the credit for its defensive gameplan and execution. Ole Miss did not get the quality of shots the Rebels have in games prior. Both teams defensively did a good job of taking away the first look. Where Ole Miss can improve is to not feel that game pressure and focus on what they can do on the court. Too many times it felt like the Rebels were searching to get that big shot or to make that tough shot because of the pressure. Tennessee felt it too, but the Vols kept attacking and more importantly they kept moving the ball.

In an example, Tennessee started this game 1-10 from three. It didn’t bother them and they ended the game making 11 and shooting 37% from it. The quality of even those first ten were good looks because Tennessee got inside looks kicked out, swung the ball around and found the open man. On the other hand, it felt like Ole Miss took the tough shot and went with it. The Rebels can learn from this. Tennessee assisted on 25 of its 34 made field goals. Ole Miss assisted on 11 of 23.

Jaemyn Brakefield and Juju Murray shine

There’s always a bright spot and Ole Miss had two in particular. Jaemyn Brakefield put together another solid offensive performance as he led the way with 22 points on a highly efficient 6-of-7 shooting. In the first nine games of the season, Brakefield scored in double figures once. In the last five, Brakefield has scored more than 15 each game.

Jaylen “Juju” Murray was tasked with going against Tennessee guard Zakai Ziegler. One of the matchups highlighted to watch pre-game did not disappoint. Murray added 11 points, all in the first half, and played the game with that chip on his shoulder that Chris Beard always talks about. He would also add three assists and a team-high eight rebounds all of which came on the defensive end.

Next Up

The Rebels will play their next two SEC games at home, beginning with Florida on Wednesday, January 10 at 8 p.m. in the SJB Pavilion on the SEC Network.

TJ Oxley

TJ Oxley is the Vice President of Operations and the Director of Community Relations for The Rebel Walk. He is also the Director of Basketball Content and Senior Basketball Writer. He has over five years of experience providing in-depth analysis of college basketball through multiple platforms. A former MBA graduate of Ole Miss, TJ started with The Rebel Walk in 2019.