OXFORD — It was the final night of February.

It was the home finale, Senior Night.

A Southeastern Conference opponent fighting for a spot in the NCAA Tournament, Texas A&M, was in town.

The baseball game on campus, a Louisiana Tech one-run win over Ole Miss, was over.

Yet, the Sandy and John Black Pavilion wasn’t exactly lively.

If Keith Carter, Glenn Boyce and anyone else in charge of the search to replace Kermit Davis needed any motivation to take a big swing in the coming days and weeks, the environment Tuesday night should have provided it. Sure, the student section filled in around tipoff and some late stragglers filled in some of the gaps, but energy was lacking for the Rebels as they tried to knock off Buzz Williams’ Aggies.

One end of the arena’s food station was closed with 16:30 left. The sweet young lady working the beer kiosk behind me on press row stood bored most of the evening.

Ole Miss started strong on the floor, but Texas A&M weathered the storm, claimed a six-point halftime lead and then held on for a 69-61 win.

Ole Miss fell to 11-19 overall and 3-14 in the Southeastern Conference. Texas A&M avoided an 0-for-Mississippi week and improved to 22-8 overall and 14-3 in the league.

There was no lack of effort. This team, to its credit, hasn't rolled over and quit once this season. The Rebels played hard for Davis. On Tuesday, for the second time since Davis and Ole Miss mutually parted ways, they fought hard for interim coach Win Case. Ole Miss trailed by just four points when Jaemyn Brakefield missed a wide-open dunk with 2:10 left.

The Rebels forced two consecutive shot-clock violations in the final four minutes of the game. A TJ Caldwell turnover led to an Andersson Garcia breakaway dunk with 1:14 left, giving the Aggies a modicum of comfort.

Matthew Murrell was terrific for Ole Miss, scoring 26 points. He'll be hotly coveted in the tampering portal in the coming weeks. He'll be a priority for the Rebels' next coach.

James White added nine points for the Rebels. Murrell was 9-for-15 from the floor. The rest of the team was 13-for-44. Murrell was 8-for-11 from the 3-point line. The rest of the team was 4-for-18. Texas A&M won in the paint, 36-14. The Aggies won on second-chance points, 22-10, and on points off the bench, 25-19.

Tyrece Radford led Texas A&M with 13 points. Wade Taylor IV added 12 and Julius Marble had 10.

"The thing I told my guys after the game is I'm just very proud of them," Case said. "The thing we want to try to do is get better with each ballgame and get ready to go into that tournament with some momentum. That's the thing we're hanging our hats on. The guys fought really, really hard tonight. We just made some costly mistakes down the stretch. ...I'm really, really happy with my team. I really am. Really happy."

The Rebels' roster needs an influx of talent. The next coach coach needs to have strong recruiting connections and the ability to work the transfer portal to his advantage.

Ole Miss travels to Missouri on Saturday to close out the regular season before heading to Nashville next week for the SEC Tournament. The Rebels will almost certainly face South Carolina in the tourney’s first game. Should they win, they’ll face the league’s No. 5 seed Thursday afternoon. The season, in other words, has single-digit days left. Everything now is about what — and more specifically, who — is next.

It’s not my place to tell Ole Miss who to hire, and no one in that department is seeking my opinion, but goodness gracious, if the Rebels are ever going to swing big, now’s the time. I guess it’s possible things could get worse, but if that happened, no one would notice. The arena could, conceivably, have less atmosphere. The season could be irrelevant in late November instead of mid-December, I suppose. I guess Ole Miss, which won four league games last season, could just win one or two next time around. It’s not possible, however, for Sections 216 and 217 to have fewer fans than they entertained Tuesday night. Section 206 had one person in it, and he was wearing a yellow security shirt, so he was either an employee taking in the action or it was Halloween practice.

Now’s the time to roll the dice for Ole Miss. There’s nothing to lose. Kansas probably wouldn’t consider Chris Beard right now, not coming off a national title and having just clinched another Big 12 title. Tennessee, which got its 11th SEC win of the season Tuesday night against Arkansas in jam-packed Thompson-Boling Arena, probably wouldn’t hire the former Texas coach right now, either. Ole Miss can't afford to be as conservative as the Jayhawks and Volunteers would be, at least not right now.

Ole Miss is very clearly considering Beard, who was fired at Texas in January, weeks after his arrest on a domestic violence charge. The charge was dropped in February, and while hiring the former Little Rock and Texas Tech coach would not be palatable to all, he’d almost certainly improve the Rebels’ on-floor product in short order.

If it’s not Beard, maybe it’s former Xavier and Louisville coach Chris Mack. He took the Musketeers to eight NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight and several Sweet 16s. Maybe Ole Miss will gamble on former LSU coach Will Wade, who is still awaiting a verdict from the NCAA’s IARP arm.

Whatever. Whoever. Now’s the time to swing big. If the Rebels lose their proverbial balance and fall down, they’ll be fine. There’s nowhere to fall. A safe, boring hire really shouldn’t be an option at this point.

"I think the job that (Andy Kennedy) did here over 11 years was phenomenal," Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams said in the opening sentence to a long answer to my question about how good the Ole Miss job can be. It's an answer I'll be writing about for days, I suspect.

Williams went on to say, in his opinion, "On both sides of the ball, Kermit Davis was the best coach in this league. Inside the lines, best coach."

Williams pointed out that Daeshun Ruffin got hurt and wasn't the same when he returned. He also pointed out that the game has changed, the way rosters are put together have changed.

"You have to be able to coach in between the lines or it won't work," Williams said. "But your skill set has to be more than coaching between the lines anymore."

The model is changing even more in the offseason as staffs are expanding in July.

"I think it's made every job hard, but I'm a coach, so that's probably the wrong answer to give," Williams said with a laugh.

Williams is right, of course. The Ole Miss job is hard. So is the Texas A&M job. So is the Missouri job and the Auburn job. It's a brutal league, but there’s no excuse. Don’t say no one cares about basketball at Ole Miss when 6,500 or so show up for a women’s game just weeks ago. And it has nothing to do with baseball, either. Mike Bianco has built a national championship program at Ole Miss and everyone loves baseball in the spring, but on Feb. 28, basketball should be the star, not an afterthought.

Ole Miss won’t play another game in the Pavilion until November. Tuesday night should serve as motivation to make sure that on that night, the program has energy, hope and excitement. A long season is almost over.

It was unacceptable. Everyone associated with it deserves better.