Just A Bad Day

From the very beginning it was just a bad day for the Ole Miss basketball team as they lost to the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens 72-65. It was clear from the tip that the Rebels were not ready to play this game. The team was flat and no one seemed to be prepared. It was a day when the Rebels did not know how to get a defensive rebound. The Bulldogs were ahead for the entire first half and it seemed like they were able to get every tip and lucky shot. The second half for the Rebels looked a little better on offense. Dwayne Curtis led the Rebels with 19 points while Clarence Sanders contributed twelve.

It seemed that no one brought their A game to Athens with them. I will question the coaching staff on a couple of moves. Why did Mike Smith start, I find this odd when over the past few games Mike has played an extremely small amount of time. My other question is when the Rebels got back into the game and were getting stops on defense, it was while they were running a relaxed match up zone. All of the sudden when the Rebels looked like they were about to turn it around on defense we go back to the man to man defense. This did not make sense to me.

Several things contributed to the loss. We did not shoot well from the free throw line which is something we have been doing well this year. Also, neither Bam Doyne nor Todd Abernathy contributed much Saturday. If both of these guys do not contribute we are destined to lose. Another factor that contributed to the loss was the fact Ole Miss had 20 turnovers. It makes it extremely difficult to win a game with that many turnovers.

A point in the game I turn to is when the Rebels are up by one point and have their first lead in the game and had a chance to increase their lead to three. Clarence Sanders was at the line and Jermey Parnell got a stupid lane violation. This violation was followed by an 8-0 Georgia run and they continued this lead until the end of the game.

The Rebels must bounce back as they travel to Fayetteville on Wednesday to take on the Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena. With so many players on the roster from Arkansas, hopefully we will be more focused to play.