Texas drops 72-69 thriller to No. 23 Ole Miss in Oxford

Sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t lie, and the tale it told on Wednesday in Oxford as the Texas Longhorns dropped a 72-69 thriller against the No. 23 Ole Miss Rebels was of a tight game with small margins.

The game data spoke of a hard-fought contest that went into double digits in ties and lead changes, a typically rugged SEC amongst teams with a sum of small separation.

Down by two points and with 26 seconds remaining and a four-second difference in the shot clock and game clock and with Ole Miss intent on denying the ball to star freshman guard Tre Johnson throughout the game by any means possible — including committing a foul at the midcourt circle on a dribble handoff with 5:43 remaining — Texas was able to successfully execute a dribble handoff for Johnson, who drove to his right hand and lofted a near-paint floater off the window and off the front of the rim.

Hustling for a 50-50 ball, senior forward Arthur Kaluma crashed towards the front of the rim, but left his putback so short it didn’t classify as a shot attempt in the game data, leading to a desperation foul with eight seconds remaining.

The foul was committed against Ole Miss guard Davon Barnes, who missed a critical front end of a one-and-one with 19 seconds remaining and the Rebels holding a two-point lead against the Aggies last week. Barnes missed it, and Texas A&M made the game-winning three five seconds later, pulling off an improbable late-game comeback.

On Wednesday, however, Barnes calmly stepped to the free-throw line and buried two critical free throws to give the Rebels a three-point lead.

Working against the clock with less than 10 seconds remaining, Texas was able to produce an open corner three for Johnson with two seconds left, a remarkable look given the emphasis on affording Johnson zero space, but the shot went just wide to end the game.

It was one of a number of open misses for the Longhorns, who shot 5-of-22 from beyond the arc and received a poor performance from junior guard Jordan Pope as the Oregon State transfer finished with eight points on 3-of-14 shooting, including a 2-of-7 mark from three, two turnovers, and a minus-six mark in 22 minutes.

Johnson wasn’t efficient from the floor, either, the central focus of the nation’s No. 12 defense in adjusted efficiency, shooting 6-of-16 overall and 2-of-8 from three, but notching a game-high 22 points nonetheless by hitting all eight free throws for 18 straight in the last two games.

Eleven giveaways with a turnover rate of 16.9 percent for Texas was only several percentage points above the sterling season average for the Horns and well below the sterling season average for the Rebels.

The opportunism for Ole Miss in those situations made a difference, though — the Rebels posted 13-4 advantage in points off turnovers and a related 7-2 edge in fast-break points.

Texas also allowed 25 free throws to Ole Miss, converted into 19 points at 76 percent as the Rebels finished plus-11 in free-throw attempts and plus-seven in makes, certainly another difference in the game for a Longhorns defense that has struggled with opposing free-throw rate in conference play.

On a three-game losing streak, Ole Miss was the desperate team needing to notch a home win in conference play. Texas missed some opportunities and has continued room for improvement, but did enough to win except for making a couple critical shots.

One of the best shot makers for the Rebels, predictably, was senior guard Sean Pedulla, who made consecutive threes for Ole Miss after Texas turned a 15-15 tie into a 32-19 lead over an ugly offensive stretch for the home team.

In scoring a team-high 19 points, Pedulla hit 50 percent of his shot attempts, including 4-of-7 shooting from three, and added five assists. Not only did Pedulla respond to the game’s biggest run, he also made other key shots, hitting a three and showing off his footwork to step into a paint jumper in a personal five-point surge for the Rebels midway through the second half and hitting another paint jumper with 1:02 remaining to go ahead 70-68 prior to missed runner by Johnson and the continued end of game edge for Ole Miss.

That’s the margin of error for a competitive SEC team in the nation’s best and most rugged conference and the Longhorns have proved themselves at that level.

Now the question is whether Texas can string enough wins together to solidify an NCAA Tournament berth, at a baseline, a quest that restarts on Saturday with a must-win game against a bad LSU team in Baton Rouge.