Ole Miss closed out the first half Saturday with a flourish and then controlled things from there, beating Vanderbilt, 69-56.
With the win, Ole Miss improved to 15-1 overall and 2-1 in the Southeastern Conference. Vanderbilt fell to 5-11 overall and 0-3 in the league.
The victory was Ole Miss’ 10th in a row at the Sandy and John Black Pavilion, breaking the previous record of nine straight wins. The 10 straight wins is a facility record.
“We have a homecourt advantage in Oxford now,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said. “It’s got to continue to get better and it will.”
Matthew Murrell led Ole Miss with 24 points and six rebounds. Allen Flanigan finished with 16 points, five rebounds and eight assists. Jaylen Murray added 12 points, five rebounds and three assists.
Ole Miss out-rebounded the Commodores, 42-33, winning both defensive and offensive rebounds. For the second straight SEC game, the Rebels committed just eight turnovers.
Ole Miss held the Commodores scoreless for the game’s final 4:50, a defensive effort that minimized the impact of a slow offensive finish on the Rebels’ end.
“Nobody wants to win more than we do,” Beard said. “I haven’t always been able to say that about every team we’ve coached. These guys are internally competitive. We have a vision for the program and a plan to get there. We’re only three rounds into this 18-round fight so we’ve got a lot of work to do. I like where these guys’ hearts are. These guys care.”
Vanderbilt led, 27-26, with 4:28 left in the first half. Ole Miss controlled things from there, however, going on a 15-6 run to close the half. Murrell keyed the run with a pair of 3-pointers.
Leading by nine at the beginning of the second half, the Rebels pushed that number to 14 on a jumper from Flanigan.
Vanderbilt did pull to within 55-52, with just more than eight minutes left.
However, Ole Miss answered with a 14-3 run, one punctuated by a pair of Cisse free throws with just under four minutes left. The Rebels would go on to win by 13, holding their opponent to under 60 points for the fourth time this season.
“Today was a positive for us to out-rebound the opponent,” Beard said. “I thought the guys were dialed in today on rebounding, among other things.”
Murrell climbed the school leaderboard for career makes from 3 Saturday, surpassing Terence Davis and Devontae Shuler to tie Stefan Moody for seventh with 181. He is also now tied with Davis for the eighth-most attempts from three.
Murrell also moved into 30th for career points at Ole Miss, surpassing former Rebel guard and head coach Rod Barnes.
“My teammates are great players,” Murrell said. “They drive and create for me, give me a lot of open catch-and-shoot shots and those are shots I practice every day in practice. …I give credit to my teammates. I’m taking a lot more open shots.”
Coming off a record-breaking performance in his last game, Jamarion Sharp recorded three blocked shots today, giving him 327 in his career to pass Ole Miss’ Reginlad Buckner on the NCAA career list.
With 18 assists and just eight turnovers, the Rebels recorded an assist-to-turnover ratio over 2 for the fifth time this year. Ole Miss entered Saturday’s game ranked 26th in college basketball with a ratio of 1.54.
“Defensively today, I thought it was one of our best efforts,” Beard said. “We had five guys playing team defense at the same time, five guys in their stance, and that was certainly our plan.”
Vanderbilt was led by Tyrin Lawrence with 14 points. Jason Rivera-Torres adding 12 off the bench.
Ole Miss will hit the road for a pair of SEC games next week, beginning with a trip to Baton Rouge to face LSU on Wednesday at 6 p.m. on the SEC Network.
