No. 4 Tennessee fell to Ole Miss on Wednesday night by a score of 78-76 in the penultimate game of the regular season.
The Vols and Rebels battled in a 40-minute contest but Tennessee couldn’t get the game-tying look from Igor Milicic Jr. to fall at the buzzer.
Tennessee falls to 24-6 with the regular-season finale against South Carolina around the corner on Saturday afternoon in Knoxville.
Aside from an impactful 19 second-half points from Jaemyn Brakefield, the difference maker in the game against Tennessee was the Vols’ inability to find rebounding success in the second half against a statistically poor rebounding team. The Vols had the +7 rebounding advantage at halftime but ended the game at -4 on the boards. Ole Miss particularly found success with offensive rebounds in the second half.
Tennessee’s offense scored 76 points on 46% with Jordan Gainey leading the way at 17 points. Chaz Lanier and Felix Okpara followed behind at 15 and 13 points, respectively. The Vols just couldn’t find enough stops in the final 20 minutes to pick up the win on Wednesday night.
After the game, RTI’s Ryan Schumpert and Ric Butler broke down their thoughts of the game from Oxford. Check out the RTI: Reaction show below:
