Back in mid-December, Ole Miss basketball coach Chris Beard joined our Crooked Letter Sports podcast to talk about his Rebels, who had won nine of their first 10 games.
When a host – this one – praised the team’s guard play but pointed out the Rebels’ were often out-rebounded and out-muscled in the paint, Beard did not disagree.
Instead, Beard made a little joke about it. He smiled and said that, yes, rebounding worried him mightily. He said he prayed every night, first for his three daughters and then for more rebounding.
Here lately, his Rebels have answered that second part of his prayers. More specifically, Malik Dia has been a muscular, 6-feet, 9-inch, 250-pound answer to Beard’s prayers. Indeed, Dia, a junior transfer from Belmont, has become more assertive and more aggressive and has suddenly become the in-the-paint muscle the Rebels so badly needed. On Tuesday night, Dia scored 23 points and, more importantly, pulled down 19 rebounds in the Rebels’ 74-64 road victory over No. 4 Alabama. Dia’s 19 rebounds were more than half of the Ole Miss total of 37. Alabama, one of the nation’s best rebounding teams, had only two more than the Rebels.
The victory improved Ole Miss to 15-2 overall and a perfect 4-0 in the Southeastern Conference. Remarkably, it was the first Ole Miss road victory over a Top 5 team in the history of the program.
Dia’s emergence has been all the more remarkable. In 13 pre-SEC games, he averaged a Clark Kent-ish 7.1 points and 5.4 rebounds a game. In four SEC games, he has been Superman, scoring at a 17.5 clip and rebounding at 10.3 per game. In the Rebels three most recent games, he has averaged 21 points.
Alabama ranks 11th in the nation in rebounding margin. The Tide has been especially relentless on the offensive boards, getting 20 and 18 offensive rebounds in SEC wins over Texas A&M and Oklahoma. The Tide got only four against Ole Miss. More often than not, it was Dia’s big, strong hands going above all others to snare rebounds on Alabama’s end.
“Maybe it’s time to start talking about Ole Miss,” Beard said after the game.
Maybe it is.
Start with this: Where Ole Miss basketball is concerned, it starts with defense. Defense travels. Tuesday night, it traveled to Tuscaloosa. The 64 points were the least Alabama has scored since the Sweet 16 of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Alabama came into the game averaging a league-best 90 points a game. The Tide offense comes at you in waves. Bama scored 98 against Wake Forest, 96 against Memphis, 100 against nationally ranked Illinois, 94 against North Carolina, 107 against Oklahoma.
But Ole Miss controlled the tempo from the get-go at Coleman Coliseum, where the Tide had not lost this season. The Rebels did that by handling the ball well themselves, but forcing turnover after turnover by Alabama. The proof is right there on the black and white stat sheet. Alabama turned the ball over 21 times, Ole Miss only seven. That computes to 14 extra possessions for Ole Miss — and that computes to a double-digit victory.
Jaylen Murray and Sean Pedulla, the two guys who handle the ball most for Ole Miss, committed only two turnovers in a combined 62 minutes of playing time. Ole Miss scored 19 points off turnovers, Alabama only 10. That’s the game right there.
So who would have thought it? Ole Miss and No. 1 ranked Auburn now stand as the only two undefeated teams in SEC play.
It might not last long. The Rebels play Saturday against arch-rival Mississippi State at Starkville. In Egg Bowl basketball, the home team usually wins. State has won 99 of 127 games played in Starkville. Ole Miss has won 87 of 133 played in Oxford.
State badly needs a victory. After a 14-1 start, the Bulldogs have lost two in a row to Kentucky and Auburn. At the same Dia has been heating up for Ole Miss with 63 points over three games, State standout Josh Hubbard has cooled down. Over the last three games, Hubbard has made just six of 26 three-point tries, just nine of 37 overall.
Watch those two Saturday night. If those trends continue, so will the trends that count most: the winning and losing streaks.
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