No. 19 Ole Miss aims to avoid slip-up against South Carolina

Some Saturday night heroics in the bayou have No. 19 Ole Miss riding a two-game winning streak, but the Rebels realize no opponent can be taken lightly in the Southeastern Conference.Coach Chris Beard’s squad will play its second straight struggling foe when it faces last-place South Carolina on Wednesday night in Columbia, S.C.Ole Miss (18-6, 7-4 SEC) broke a disturbing recent trend while beating LSU on Saturday: The Rebels were victorious in a close game.In SEC contests decided by three points or fewer, Beard’s bunch entered the battle in Baton Rouge 1-2 — and the Rebels did just about everything they could to make sure a third loss was coming.They shot 37.7 percent overall and made just 6 of 23 3-point attempts (26.1 percent). Ole Miss sank only 20 of 29 free throws (69 percent) and was outrebounded by one.Even against the 15th-place team among the SEC’s 16, Ole Miss was working on a recipe for a bad defeat against a bad team.However, the Rebels rallied with a game-ending 13-0 run and got a buzzer-beating tip-in from Dre Davis for a 72-70 victory, its third triumph in four outings.”Couldn’t get a stop for most of the game,” Beard said. “We had to take care of the ball and kind of score with them for a while. We only had one turnover in the second half and only five for the game.”Taking advantage of possessions has been a key to the Rebels’ success.In their 98-84 win over then-No. 14 Kentucky on Feb. 4, the Rebels produced 24 assists while committing only one turnover, a result mostly of point guard Sean Pedulla’s play.The Virginia Tech transfer had 17 points against LSU and leads with averages of 15 points and 2.1 steals per game. He is second with 3.8 assists per contest, trailing only Jaylen Murray’s 3.9.Fifth in scoring for Ole Miss at 10.5 ppg, Davis will go to South Carolina hot, averaging 15.3 points in his past four games.