If you fell asleep at halftime, you missed one of the greatest comebacks in NCAA Tournament history.
Andy Kennedy and his Relentless Rebels found themselves trailing BYU 49-32 at halftime in Dayton, Ohio last night. Nothing seemed to be going right for Ole Miss. Everything was going right for BYU.
Then the second half started.
All Ole Miss (21-12) did was score 62 points in 20 minutes of play, 50 in the final 14:07 to knock off the Cougars (25-10), 94-90. That 50 points in the final 14:07 is a rate of 141.7 for 40 minutes of basketball.
“We wanted to show that we belonged here,” head coach Andy Kennedy said. “I challenged our guys to show that we are worthy of this selection. There are a lot of quality teams in college basketball that don’t have this opportunity, so let’s go show that we’re worthy, and we did that.”
Led by junior guard Stefan Moody and senior forward M.J. Rhett, the Rebels went into video game mode for the final 20 minutes of the contest. Moody, who scored a team high 26 points, was 10 of 18 from the field including five three pointers. Rhett scored 14 of his 20 points in the second half and shot an incredible 9 of 11 from the field.
“We wanted to attack the paint as much as we could because our jump shots weren’t falling in the first half,” Rhett said. “We kept attacking and getting to the rim, and that’s we did.”
Indeed. Ole Miss outscored BYU in the paint 42-12.
It was a game for the ages, and the season continues. Ole Miss will take on Xavier in second action Thursday at 3:10 CT in Jacksonville, Fla.
Game notes for the Xavier Game can be found here: MARCH MADNESS
