Ole Miss Players Highlight ‘Complacency’ as Key Factor in Loss to Mississippi State

The No. 19 Ole Miss Rebels did not play up to their standard on Saturday as they lost to the No. 22 Mississippi State Bulldogs 81-71 at the SJB Pavilion in Oxford.

After the game, Ole Miss broke tradition and sent in all five of its starters for the media availability session, and they fielded questions from reporters on what exactly went wrong against a Mississippi State team that had scuffled in recent weeks.

The Bulldogs out-rebounded the Rebels 48-36 on Saturday, including 14 offensive rebounds that led to 16 second-chance points. That was one starting point for the lackluster performance for Ole Miss.

Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans stated after the game that he thought Ole Miss was playing better than his team entering Saturday night’s contest, but Sean Pedulla disagreed with that assessment.

“I thought we haven’t really been playing our best ever since that second half against Kentucky,” Pedulla said. “I feel like since then, it’s been on a steady decline. When you play a team that’s playing for a lot right now and playing as competitive as they are, it’s going to show like it did today. They were definitely the more aggressive team today in pretty much every category.”

The Rebels had won three straight games entering Saturday, but they have experienced nail-biters on the road against some of the bottom teams in the conference, escaping games against LSU and South Carolina.

“Just being complacent. Not fixing the issues that we’ve got to fix,” Pedulla said. “Rebounding has been a struggle for us all year, and it’s continuing to be a struggle. We’ve got to turn it into something that’s a positive.

“Whenever you know what your weaknesses are, and they continue to be your weaknesses, it makes it hard to win. You need to exploit it, if you’re the other team.”

After the game, head coach Chris Beard was asked if “complacency” was a fair characterization of what his team had experienced since the win over Kentucky. If it is, Beard views it as a big problem.

“If complacency is a part of this, then we’ve got some guys that need to do some real soul searching,” Beard said. “I mean, complacent for what? What have we done that allows us to be complacent?”

The Rebels were also asked if fatigue had anything to do with their performance. Ole Miss has a week off this week before taking on Vanderbilt, but it has been a grind in the Southeastern Conference up to this point.

“We weren’t tired at all,” guard Jaylen Murray said. “We just weren’t aggressive. Just that simple. You’ve got to be aggressive to win, especially when you’re playing against teams like Mississippi State, just like Sean said, that’s playing for a lot.

“They’ve got a chip on their shoulder, and we came in and thought it was going to be easy. We have to play harder. It’s that simple.”

The loss knocks Ole Miss down to 19-7 overall and 8-5 in conference play, and it will try to return to winning in the SEC next Saturday on the road against Vandy. Tip-off is set for 2:30 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

“We know we’ve got to play better,” guard Dre Davis said. “Use this next week to get the information. We know our weakness. Learn from it, continue to get better, continue to stay together, get ready for Vanderbilt.”