Mizzou defeats Ole Miss 74-68 on Rally for Rhyan night

The Missouri Tigers win their second straight game on Rally for Rhyan night

Photo courtesy of Cassie Florido via Mizzou Athletics

COLUMBIA- The Missouri Tigers sweep the season series against the Ole Miss Rebels on #RallyforRhyan night at Mizzou Arena 74-68.

Both teams got off to a rather slow start with Missouri winning 11-7 after 5 minutes of play. Javon Pickett made an impact early knocking down a three from the corner off of a feed from Dajuan Gordon.

Speaking of Dajuan Gordon, he made his presence felt by scoring back-to-back three-pointers, leading him to lift his finger to his mouth to silence the Rebels bench.

"When I shot it, they was just talking. I was just telling them to be quiet," Gordon said.

Gordon finished with 13 points with nine coming beyond the arc.

Not even a week ago, the Tigers attempted 25 three-pointers against the Vanderbilt Commodores and only capitalized on five of them, which was good for 20%. Against Ole Miss, it was a different story.

"I just think in the Vanderbilt game, we didn't play as Mizzou," Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin said. "We didn't play with any grit or toughness, we came up short and it showed."

The Tigers shot 50% from deep compared to Ole Miss' 22%. Although the Tigers closed the first half on a 15-4 run and led by 11 points, it wasn't enough to keep Ole Miss from chipping away at Missouri's lead.

"We just gotta continue to go out there and compete for 40 minutes," Missouri guard Javon Pickett said. "We've seen today we kind of took our foot off the gas."

In the second half, Missouri's Ronnie Degray III helped keep Ole Miss at bay. He scored 10 points for the Tigers including a late three-pointer that made Mizzou's lead 67-58 right when the Rebels were knocking on the door.

Ole Miss trailed by 20 points early in the second half but then that lead dwindled all the way down to four points towards the very end. The Tigers would hold on though for the six-point victory and a win on Rhyan's night at Mizzou arena.

The Tigers win back-to-back games for the first time since November and advance to 6-1 in Rally For Rhyan contests all-time. Missouri will look to extend its winning streak to three games when they host Arkansas on Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Mizzou Arena.