TAMPA, Fla. – Kobe Brown scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half as 12th-seeded Missouri pulled away from 13th-seeded Ole Miss for a 72-60 win Wednesday night in the opening game of the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball tournament.
Ronnie DeGray III made a trio of 3-pointers while scoring 14 points, all in the first half, to help the Tigers (12-20) keep pace.
Missouri will take on fifth-seeded LSU (21-10) in Thursday’s second round at Amalie Arena. LSU won the regular-season matchup 75-55 on Feb. 26 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the fifth loss in a string of six straight for Missouri, which beat Georgia 79-69 last Saturday to close the regular season and end that skid.
Matthew Murrell scored 16 points and Jarkel Joiner had 13 for the Rebels (13-19), who lost their fifth straight.
Missouri defeated Ole Miss twice during the regular season, with the Tigers winning 78-53 on the road on Jan 18 and 74-68 at home on Feb. 12 – their last victory before the recent losing streak. The last time the Tigers beat the same team three times in a season was 2012, when they did so against both Baylor and Texas in their final Big 12 campaign.
After the first half of Wednesday’s game ended 32-all – Ole Miss had the largest lead at five points – Missouri opened the second by outscoring the Rebels 13-2. The lead reached 14 points with 11 1/2 minutes remaining and stayed in double figures.
DeGray entered about four minutes into the game, hit three straight 3-pointers and added a 2-point basket while running off 11 consecutive points for Missouri. But it took two buckets by Amari Davis, who also came off the bench, to get the Tigers even at halftime.
Missouri shot better than 50% in both halves, finishing at 54% to the Rebels’ 41%, and grabbed 12 more rebounds than Ole Miss did.
Vanderbilt 86, Georgia 51
The 11th-seeded Commodores got over the . 500 mark by cruising past the 14th-seeded Bulldogs, who ended a 6-26 season by losing their final 11 games and managed just one win against a conference foe.
Vanderbilt (16-15) was led by 14 points on 6-for-12 shooting from Scotty Pippen Jr., with Myles Stute and Jordan Wright adding 11 points apiece and Shane Dezonie chipping in 10 for the Commodores, who were ahead 35-14 at halftime. Pippen scored all but one of his points in the first 20 minutes and played just five minutes in the second half, with his program-record streak of games with 20-plus points ending at seven.
Georgia’s Braelen Bridges had game highs with 15 points and 11 rebounds, Kario Oquendo added 11 points and Noah Baumann had 10, but the Bulldogs shot just 14-for-47 (29.8%) from the field and were 2-for-17 (11.8%) from 3-point range. Georgia scored 21 of its points at the foul line, getting three times as many chances there as Vanderbilt, which made six of its nine free throws.
Vanderbilt went 32-for-68 from the floor (47.1%), going 16-for-41 (39%) from 3-point range. A 19-5 run put the Commodores up 23-9 in the first half.
They beat the Bulldogs for the third time this season, although the regular-season sweep wasn’t built on blowouts like this one. Vanderbilt won 73-66 at Georgia on Jan. 15 and 85-77 in Nashville on Jan. 29.
The Bulldogs’ lone SEC win in their fourth season under the direction of coach Tom Crean came on Jan. 25 at Alabama, 82-76.