TJ’s Takeaways: Ole Miss Men’s Basketball Defeats UNC, Reaches Round of 32 for First Time Since 2013

Editor’s Note: In our ongoing series, “TJ’s Takeaways,” we give readers an in-depth look at the latest Ole Miss men’s basketball game, as our TJ Oxley offers his thoughts, analysis, and insight. This series 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. And if you’re also looking for a recap of the game, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Check it out HERE.

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MILWAUKEE — On Friday afternoon, No. 6-seed Ole Miss defeated No. 11-seed North Carolina in the first round of the men’s NCAA tournament in Milwaukee, WI. The 71-64 win was the first Ole Miss victory in the NCAA tournament since Andy Kennedy’s group defeated BYU in the first four back in 2015. The Rebels will be in the Round of 32 for the first time since the 2013 tournament. With the win, Ole Miss coach Chris Beard is now 6-0 in the opening in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Rebels survive and advance after fighting off a strong comeback from UNC, who had the game down to a single possession in the closing minutes. Ole Miss was led by Sean Pedulla (20 points) who displayed some late-game heroics with several crucial baskets down the stretch.

It wasn’t all drama in this one as Ole Miss opened the game with an 11-2 run that set the pace for a first half where Ole Miss scored in bunches and took a 46-26 lead. Ole Miss showed the explosive scoring that North Carolina displayed in its first-four matchup against San Diego State. The Rebels shot 51% from the field and 53% from the perimeter in the first half against the Tar Heels

Dre Davis and Jaemyn Brakefield were the go-to guys in the first half as Davis was perfect from the field in the opening half with 5-5 FG shooting and 13 points in the half. Davis ended the game with 15 total points. Brakefield, on the other hand, showed his stretch four skillset, knocking down a couple threes and thriving in pick-and-pop situations. The fifth-year senior forward finished the game with 12 points after adding 10 in the first half.

The Tar Heels were led by guard RJ Davis who tallied 15 points to close out his UNC career. Ven-Allen Lubin was the only other North Carolina player in double figures with 14 points.

Overall, Ole Miss shot 44% from the field and 40% from three while shooting 15-23 from the free throw line. North Carolina shot 38% from the field and 21% from three.

Now that we have the bases covered, let’s get into some takeaways to dive a little deeper into what happened.

Something Had to Give In This Match-Up

Following North Carolina’s dominant 95-68 win over San Diego State in the first four, the team the national media was upset that got into the tournament was now a betting favorite in the opening round matchup against Ole Miss. The Tar Heels opened as -1.5 point favorite with some sites having the Tar Heels as -2 favorite.

In that first-four win, North Carolina shot >50% from the field, >50% from three and >90% from the free throw line. Prior to the contest, I found some statistics that showed correlations on how each team’s outcome is affected by the three ball performance.

Prior to yesterday’s outcome, North Carolina was averaging a three-point percentage around 36%, while Ole Miss was holding teams to slightly above 32%. While that 4% is not a huge difference, a basketball player who shoots in the higher 30s is normally a better shooter than one in the lower 30s.

However, after a deeper dive I compared the record for when UNC shot greater than or less than 32% from three-point range, and I also looked at the record for when teams shoot greater or less than 36% on Ole Miss’ defense.

North Carolina’s offense was 20-4 on the season when shooting >32% from 3PT. They were 4-9 when they shot less than that number.

For Ole Miss’ defense, the Rebels were 4-6 when teams shot greater than 36% from the perimeter and 18-5 when teams shot less.

So in this game, something had to give…Was Ole Miss’ defense going to stall the UNC offense, or was this hot Tar Heels team going to continue to find some success against the perimeter?

Ole Miss’ Defense Did Everything It Needed To

To answer the question above, the Ole Miss defense dictated the tempo of this one. North Carolina is a top-25 rated team in offensive efficiency and a top-35 team in pace by KenPom that was going up against an Ole Miss defense that was top-20 in defensive efficiency. As the score shows, Ole Miss won the game, but how did it happen?

The answer lies in the principles of the Ole Miss defense; a staple for Chris Beard and his de facto defensive coordinator Mark Adams is the no middle defense. Talking about it earlier, this system prides itself on keeping the ball on the wings/corners and limiting time in the middle by trying to eliminate paint touches and swings. It breaks the defense down to thirds and keeps the ball out of the middle third at all costs. This creates situations where opposing teams are forced into taking: 1) tougher mid-range shots, and 2) contested three point attempts as the defense forces them to a side and creates help on the baseline.

Early on, North Carolina tried to find its way into the paint, especially with guards Elliot Cadeau and RJ Davis. In this defense, when a player attacks the weak side it is set up to sit in gaps of where skip passes could be. North Carolina opted to look into getting the ball in the post and both Matthew Murrell and Sean Pedulla found early success jumping those gaps and forcing turnovers.

This created frustration from a UNC offense that normally likes to get out and go a bit more. In the half court, North Carolina pivoted to try and find success by utilizing high ball screens that would create opportunities to attack off the edge. North Carolina used both guard/forward and guard/guard screens. Ole Miss switched everything, creating some mismatches, but credit the Rebel defense for keeping the gaps tight and not allowing mismatches to be taken advantage of.

North Carolina also looked to utilize hi-low feeds with a flasher to the high post. This worked some with smaller Ole Miss guards switching onto UNC forwards. Ole Miss looked to front these situations, but help was late on a few possessions. This led to some easy feeds in the interior for the Tar Heels and some points for Ven-Allen Lubin.

When the drive penetration and post feeds aren’t available, it leads to tough perimeter shots which UNC was forced into. That feeds into what Ole Miss wanted North Carolina to do — and it did. The Tar Heels finished the contest 5-24 from three. Coach Beard mentioned this in the post game press conference, but some of that did fall to UNC just missing shots. However, a lot can be a result of the situation presented to them — the five made threes by the Tar Heels was tied for their fourth-lowest total on the season and North Carolina was 2-7 in games with these circumstances.

Now for much of a broader view, Ole Miss held the Tar Heels to 64 points. That’s the second-lowest total for UNC this season. Former NCAA coach and current analyst Tom Crean was famous for counting what he calls ‘turkeys.’ A ‘turkey’ is where a team gets three straight possessions when the opposition doesn’t score in any capacity. The numbers say that if a team records six of these ‘turkeys’ in a game, that team is likely to win the game. Ole Miss recorded five in the first half and five in the second half of the contest vs North Carolina.  That well surpasses and totals up to 30 possessions where Ole Miss thwarted the Tar Heel offense.

The Ole Miss Offense was Hot… Then It Was Not… And it Almost Cost Them

Early on in the season, Ole Miss was a second-half team, one that really needed time to get in a flow before the offense would start to click and get stretches of buckets. However, when Ole Miss started playing some of the more uptempo teams, the Rebels had success early on, such as against Kentucky, Alabama, Memphis, BYU and even the scrimmage against Illinois to start out the year.

Ole Miss is a capable team of putting up offense but is it always consistent? Against North Carolina, the Ole Miss offense found success, and as one of the last minute keys to the game (see below), Ole Miss needed to start with a sense of urgency. The Rebels jumped out to an 11-2 lead right out of the gate. With his versatility on offense, Dre Davis was instrumental in getting this lead started. Looking like he did when he led Seton Hall to the NIT Championship game last year, Davis was determined in this one. He finished the game with 15 points and 8 rebounds, getting putbacks, making tough low-mid post turnarounds, and stepping out and knocking down shots from three.

Halftime Updates

1) UNC with 8 pts in paint ✅
2) Ole Miss leads 21-10 ✅
3) Started with 11-2 lead ✅ https://t.co/W40XJpW6dk

— T.J. (@TJOxley1) March 21, 2025

Sean Pedulla on Dre Davis

Malik Dia also showed some post dominance with two really forceful buckets going through Jalen Washington. No player on the Rebels’ roster made more of an impact in his time on the court then Dia. Finishing with 8 points and 5 rebounds, he was 3-4 from the field in only 18 minutes of action. It may not sound like much but establishing a post presence has been tough at times for Ole Miss this season. But this matchup was identical with size and gave an opportunity for the Rebels to strike.

So what happened in the second half? UNC went on several mini-runs and one huge run. In the second half, UNC took what appeared to be a rout by Ole Miss and battled back to make it thrilling. The Tar Heels went on an 11-0 run in a second half that saw a large bump in the tempo of the game.

North Carolina’s defense had improved as the year went on, and in the second half, Ole Miss struggled to get any sort of action going. The UNC guards were able to navigate around Ole Miss ballscreens rather easily, forcing the Rebels into the second and third options of their sets. This led Ole Miss to some deep-in-the-shot-clock situations with players forced to take isolation shots.

Let’s go back to that 11-0 North Carolina run for a second. The game pressure looked like it was starting to get to Ole Miss as UNC was mounting its come back. The offensive frustration seemed to irritate Ole Miss and players started to gamble and be more aggressive with immediate pressure. Chris Beard looked for adjustments to slow the game back down, including switching to a 1-2-2 zone.

For 34 minutes in this game, Ole Miss controlled the tempo and North Carolina wanted to speed it up. However, during this run, the Tar Heels were able to capitalize and speed the game up. Ole Miss turned the ball over four times and was scoreless from the 8:55 to 2:57 mark.

Evan Miya calls anytime a team goes on a 10-0 run a ‘killshot.’ Further evidence shows that teams who achieve a 10-0 run in a game win the contest 71% of the time. This run brought the game to a two-possession game with the North Carolina faithful creating an audible crowd advantage in the Fiserv Forum.

However, one player on Ole Miss would not be denied…

Sean Pedulla is Mr. Clutch for this Ole Miss Team

Early on, players like Dre Davis, Jaylen Murray, Jaemyn Brakefield and Malik Dia all found success and a flow on offense. When things turned tough in the second half, Ole Miss guard Sean Pedulla was there to get things under control. At around the 12:39 mark, North Carolina was climbing back via a 13-6 run. The Rebels’ offense had gone cold, and that was when Sean Pedulla started to take over.

The third team All-SEC guard took matters into his own hands, backing down North Carolina guard Elliot Cadeau before finishing inside with an and-one that pushed the lead back out to 16, halting an initial Tar Heels run. After UNC went on its 11-0 run, Pedulla made a layup to stop the bleeding and extend the lead back to six.

Finally with the momentum heading to North Carolina after the Tar Heels cut the Ole Miss lead to two in the final minute, Pedulla rose up for the biggest shot of his Ole Miss career, knocking down a perimeter three off a dribble handoff where Pedulla’s defender went underneath, giving the guard space to pull the trigger.

SEAN PEDULLA ANSWERS THE CALL 📞#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/Lcq4Q1Ryon

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 21, 2025

Pedulla finished the game with 20 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Even more impressive was how he answered the call time and time again, setting himself up to be one of the more prominent players in March should Ole Miss’ run continue.

Ole Miss Won a Rebounding Battle

It had been a long time coming, but my last point focuses on the glass. The last game that Ole Miss outright won the rebounding battle was in December against Queens (NC). The Rebels created a gap early on by being up 12-4 in the beginning stages of the contest, and they would stay in the driver’s seat to win the rebounding battle 40-34.

While the Tar Heels may matchup well size-wise with Ole Miss, North Carolina has been an aggressive group on the boards, averaging 36.7 rebounds per game. Similar to how Ole Miss has balanced scoring, the rebounding was a group effort Friday. All eight players who played in the game recorded at least three rebounds. Dre Davis led the team with eight, while Sean Pedulla and Matthew Murrell both recorded six. In a limited role off the bench, Eduardo Klafke recorded four rebounds in eight minutes.

Next up…

No. 6 seed Ole Miss is set to take on No. 3 seed Iowa State on Sunday with tip-off set for 6:45 PM CT in the round of 32. The winner will advance to the Sweet Sixteen with this region being held in Atlanta.