Ole Miss game predictions

Ole Miss will be without Henderson which is big for us. He is averaging almost 19 points a game. Without Henderson, I really don't think they're any better than us. Being a home game plus no Henderson, I think we have a slight advantage in this one. I predict we will win a very close game.

I think the key to the game will be what we do with Summers. Dude is shooting over .500 on the season all over the court. If we can keep pressure on him and force him to take bad shots or just eliminate him from the game all together we should win. If we can't, we probably lose.

What say ye? What am I missing?

It will depend on Borchert and Thomas hitting from the outside and us not getting in early foul trouble like we did against Kentucky. Play good defense, get some steals, drive to the basket draw fouls and dish it out for open looks for Borchert/Thomas. We do those things and we will blow Ole Miss out.

Talent-wise, Ole Miss is better than us even without Henderson. Hopefully that is something Ray will correct quickly. However, under Kennedy, Ole Miss teams are never fundamentally sound, move on offense like Stansbury is the coach, and rely on out-physical-ing the other team and their athleticism to play defense. You are right that Summers is the key for them. He is probably their best player even with Henderson, and seems to have really worked on his shooting heading into this season. The other key is their post players. If we keep them from getting involved or can get them in foul trouble, then our chances improve greatly. I advocate letting Aaron Jones shoot the ball from 7 feet or out every single time he touches it. He's terrible.

I think we need to keep the ball out of Summer's hands, as he is a sound decision maker and protects the ball well. They play the little PG more without Henderson in there, moving Summers to the wing. He likes to run it up the court quickly, and our pressure should be able to force him into bad decisions. On offense, I expect them to play more man without having to hide Henderson on Def. We need to take advantage of their man defense and hit them with lots of back cuts and off the ball screens. That will eat them up. If they switch back into zone, we can eat that up as well if we will work the triangle of the paint area with our bigs. The other thing we need to do is keep their bigs off the offensive glass. They are not a good rebounding team, but generally they hit the offensive boards hard.

I think we will win an ugly, close game - 57-55 or something like that.

62-55 Dogs.

Line is OM -3.

From what I saw last night, they don't guard the basket very well. If we attack the basket like we did against UK, then we will win. I really like we have had one more day to prepare.

72-63 State

I'm not completely sold that Ole Miss isn't better without Henderson. It just depends on which one shows up. He can win some games by himself, if he's on. But he can also lose games by himself; he pretty much did that against us last year by shooting them out of it.

I like our chances in this one, but it's tough to ever expect a win with this team.

I'll predict State to win by 6.