Takeaways: Ole Miss Basketball Falls to Tennessee in Overtime

If someone had said, "Ole Miss will never trail to Tennessee in regulation on Wednesday," would you have believed them?

The Rebels entered the night as a 17-point underdog according to the SI Sportsbook and were without its leading scorer, Jarkel Joiner, who did not make the trip due to a lower back injury. Ole Miss has struggled shooting the ball consistently this season, and Tennessee knocked off top-10 Arizona earlier in their year.

Oh, and thanks to a COVID outbreak, Ole Miss only had nine available scholarship players. Needless to say, things looked to be trending against the Rebels before tip-off.

Ole Miss never trailed in regulation, however, but Tennessee tied the game multiple times, including right before the end of the second half to send the game to overtime. There, the Rebels, who had looked discombobulated on offense all night, appeared to go even more haywire and could not seal the deal on the road.

Here are three takeaways from the Rebels' loss on Wednesday.

1. The offense still doesn't appear to be great, but Ty Fagan was on Wednesday night.

Fagan led the Rebels with 23 points against the Volunteers, going 5-of-6 from beyond the arc and 8-of-11 from the field, by far his best performance of the season.

In the absence of Jarkel Joiner, someone had to step up on the offensive end, and that was Fagan on Wednesday night. The offense as a whole wasn't great, but they did shoot better than normal, going 50 percent from three.

2. Turnovers were a big problem.

Ole Miss turned the ball over 27 times against Tennessee, an insane number that hasn't been matched by the Rebels since 2005.

There were multiple possessions throughout the night where the Rebels couldn't get a shot off before the clock expired, and if not for some solid defense (paired with a poor shooting night from the Volunteers), this game could have been decided pretty early.

3. This was an opportunity Ole Miss needed to take advantage of.

After four mediocre non-conference losses, Ole Miss needed this win tonight when it was in front of them.

Most Ole Miss fans would have taken a close loss on the road to nationally-ranked Tennessee, but a sense of frustration seems to currently surround this program amongst the fan base, and Wednesday night's late scoring drought, turnover problems and overall failure to win a game where its largest lead was 12 didn't help matters.

This team now sits at 8-5 and 0-1 in league play. It's early, but Ole Miss entered the night ranked No. 126 in the NET, and a win on Wednesday would have helped that number a lot.

No one expected an outmatched and undermanned Ole Miss to win against Tennessee this week, but when it had the chance to, it needed to capitalize. It failed to do so.

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