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gadsden_olemiss_121220
Joshua Taylor McCoy
58
UNCW UNCW 3-3,0-0 CAA
78
Winner Ole Miss OM 2-0,0-0 SEC
UNCW UNCW
3-3,0-0 CAA
58
Final
78
Ole Miss OM
2-0,0-0 SEC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
UNCW UNCW 18 40 58
Ole Miss OM 38 40 78

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Joe Browning

Ole Miss Holds Off Seahawks In Oxford

OXFORD, Mississippi – It's early, statistically, in the basketball season, and Ole Miss paces the nation's NCAA Division I schools in team defense. It's easy to see why.
 
The ball-hawking Rebels cranked up their aggressive style early Saturday to build a 38-18 halftime lead and then held off a feisty UNCW squad for a 78-58 victory at the Pavilion in the first meeting between the two schools.
 
The Rebels improved to 2-0 on the season with their second home win in three days. The Seahawks are even at 3-3 after completing a challenging stretch of three games in six days.
 
UNCW takes six-day break before visiting Norfolk State on Friday, Dec. 18, for a 4 p.m. matchup with the Spartans at Echols Hall in Norfolk.
 
"I'm very proud of our guys for fighting," said UNCW Head Coach Takayo Siddle. "We don't do moral victories. We could have easily rolled over. I thought our guys continued to fight and continued to chip away at the lead."
 
In Saturday's contest, the Seahawks played catch-up to the Rebels as a smallish crowd watched the non-conference clash. In accordance with the State of Mississippi's most recent executive order in response to COVID-19, capacity at The Pavilion was reduced to 10 percent.
 
Siddle said: "Their size on the interior was really effective. They had 42 rebounds and we had 24. I thought that was the difference in the game."
 
Graduate forward Romello White, a three-year starter at Arizona State before joining Ole Miss in the offseason, led all scorers with 20 points. Three-year point guard Devontae Shuler added 18 points and sophomore swing man Luis Rodriguez finished with 14.
 
Senior guard Ty Gadsden led UNCW in scoring for the first time this season with 16 points. Senior guard Mike Okauru collected 15 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals in an all-around effort and junior guard Jaylen Sims contributed 13 points – all in the second half.
 
The Seahawks had not faced an SEC opponent since early in the 2017 season before Saturday's defensive tussle in Oxford and the new defensive style instilled by third-year head coach Kermit Davis bothered the Seahawks early.
 
After Gadsden sank a runner with at the 13:02 mark of the first half, the Rebels closed out the period with a 28-9 run to grab control at intermission. Sims, the nation's fifth leading scorer at 26.7 points per game, was held scoreless in the first 20 minutes, missing all four of his field goal attempts, as the Seahawks managed just 30.4 percent in the first half.
 
But UNCW found its legs in the second period and after Ole Miss extended the margin to 51-25 on a Shuler three-pointer, the Seahawks closed the gap to 15 points at the eight-minute mark.
 
Sophomore transfer Joe Pridgen slipped underneath to pull the Seahawks within 59-44 to cap a six-point mini-run before the Rebels, behind White, regrouped to keep the North Carolinians at bay. The 6-8, 235-pound White scored seven of his points in the final stretch and the bouncy Shuler added the same number for the Rebels, who led for 37:03 of the contest.
 
GAME NOTES: The Seahawks now stand 2-16 lifetime vs. the SEC in men's hoops…Okauru led the Seahawks in rebounding, assists and tied for the team lead in steals on the day…The Seahawks shot 50 percent in the second half on 14-of-28 shooting…The Rebels made 62.5 percent of their shots after the break and finished at 51.7 percent…Ole Miss scored 50 points in the paint and scored 24 points off 19 UNCW turnovers…Ole Miss ranks No. 1 in scoring defense and No. 2 in field goal percentage defense in the latest NCAA statistics…The Seahawks are 1-2 in true road games in 2020-21.


 

 
 
 
 
 
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