Mississippi Rebels vs Middle Tennessee St. Blue Raiders Match Player Stats On Dec 09, 2017

The Sports Xchange
Dec 9, 2017

Middle Tennessee earned its fifth consecutive win against a Southeastern Conference team with a 77-58 victory over Mississippi on Saturday night at Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The Blue Raiders' 8-0 run to start the second half took away the Rebels' last lead, then the hosts owned the final four minutes after Mississippi chopped a double-digit deficit to four.

Senior forward Nick King poured in a game-high 25 points for Middle Tennessee (7-1) while senior forward Brandon Walters delivered a career-high 20 points and four steals with a career-high-tying four blocks. Senior guard Giddy Potts added 14 points.

Senior forward Marcanvis Hymon hit all six of his shots to pace Mississippi (4-4) with 12 points. Junior guard Terence Davis (10 points) went 3 of 9 from the floor and finished eight points below his average, while senior guard Deandre Burnett (nine points) hit just 1 of 7 shots off the bench and fell seven points shy of his average.

Middle Tennessee, fresh from edging Vanderbilt on Wednesday night, welcomed sophomore point guard Tyrik Dixon back into the starting lineup. He played just six minutes at Nashville with a bone bruise on his knee, but handed out nine assists on Saturday to steer the Blue Raiders' attack.

When freshman guard Therren Shelton-Szmidt cashed a 3-pointer and Walters followed it with a layup, the Blue Raiders seized a 26-19 lead with 8:11 left in the first half and forced Rebels coach Andy Kennedy to get a timeout.

Mississippi answered the call with Burnett's 3-pointer and Hymon's emphatic dunk to chop the margin to 26-24 and set the tone for a call-and-response battle for the rest of the half.

Walters threw down a dunk to regain a 33-32 edge for Middle Tennessee with 40 seconds left in the half, but the Rebels took a 34-33 lead into the locker room thanks to Hymon's offensive rebound and jam with eight seconds left.

Middle Tennessee hit Ole Miss with a 10-2 run at the outset of the second half -- capped by Dixon's feed to King for a dunk -- and stretched its lead as wide as 10 points on multiple occasions.

Walters' layup thanks to another Dixon feed gave the Blue Raiders a 60-50 advantage with 7:20 to go, but Ole Miss held the hosts scoreless for the next three minutes to clamber back into the game.

Hymon's layup with 4:44 left pulled the Rebels within 60-56, but they couldn't get any closer.