Malik Dia scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds as Ole Miss held off the upset bid of Austin Peay to earn a 72-65 nonconference win Tuesday night in Oxford, Miss.
Ilias Kamardine added 12 of his 15 points after halftime for the Rebels (5-0) while also collecting seven rebounds and seven assists. AJ Storr contributed 11 points as Ole Miss sank 12 of 23 shots after halftime while making 14 of 18 free throws.
Freshman Zyree Collins scored 17 points and dished out six assists for the Governors (3-2) before fouling out with 1:01 remaining. Collin Parker added 18 points and eight rebounds, while Rashaud Marshall chipped in 14 points.
But Austin Peay’s leading scorer, Tate McCubbin, was held to three points in 35 minutes on 1-of-9 shooting. The Governors might have left town with the paycheck and the win if they had converted more than 25 of their 70 attempts from the field.
Still, Austin Peay erased a 17-point second-half deficit and tied the game at 52 on a 3-pointer by Matt Enright with 6:23 remaining. But James Scott dunked off Dia’s feed on the next trip to start a 14-2 burst that put the Rebels in control for good.
The storyline for most of the first half was the fact that both teams simply couldn’t make shots. They endured simultaneous long scoring droughts that left the score at 16-12 nearly 12 minutes into the first half.
Austin Peay went 4:23 between buckets before Parker’s 3-pointer brought it within 19-15 at the 7:55 mark. The Governors got within 26-23 when Creighton Morisch converted an offensive rebound with 3:11 left.
However, those were their last points of the half. Ole Miss got a 3-pointer from Patton Pinkins and then a layup from Storr with 30 seconds remaining, enabling it to take a 31-23 lead to the break.
Austin Peay finished the half at 9 of 35 from the floor, while the Rebels weren’t much better at 13 of 38.
