NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Marshall Henderson struggled with Vanderbilt’s sticky defense trying to keep the Mississippi guard under control. As usual, he hit the biggest shots of the night helping the Rebels pull out another key win.
Henderson hit back-to-back 3-pointers in an 11-point spurt where Mississippi took control of a 63-52 win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday night after blowing a 13-point lead in the second half.
“People think there’s no way he’s going to shoot that, but that’s what he does,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said of Henderson. “He went and knocked down one and came back and hit another, and I think that’s what ultimately took the wind out of their sails.”
Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings certainly agrees after keeping his best defender, Dai-Jon Parker, on Henderson most of the night.
“Dai-Jon did as good a job as you could do … and the kid probably makes the two biggest baskets of the game,” Stallings said of Henderson.
Henderson, who was 1 of 8 in the first half, finished with 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting for Ole Miss. Jarvis Summers had a team-high 16 points, Anthony Perez added 13 and Ladarius White 11.
“He’s going to make shots so we keep giving it to him,” Summers said of Henderson.
The Rebels (13-5, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) now have won three straight overall and leave Memorial Gym with back-to-back wins in a place where they had won in only six of their first 55 visits.
“When you hold a Vanderbilt team to 52 points in this building, I think we did a pretty good job of executing the scouting report, staying attached to their shooters,” Kennedy said.
Vanderbilt (9-8, 1-4) just couldn’t overcome the Rebels’ 44-40 edge on the boards for a 15-8 edge in second-chance points, and Ole Miss turned the Commodores’ 17 turnovers into 16 points.
Rod Odom scored a game-high 18 points for Vanderbilt. Damian Jones had 14 and 10 rebounds. Point guard Kyle Fuller had nearly as many turnovers (four) as he had points (five), and Parker finished with two more turnovers than points (two).
“We’re not a good enough team to survive that,” said Stallings, who has no other options at guard with only seven scholarship players.
The Rebels took a 29-20 lead into halftime and went up 33-20 in the opening minutes of the second half. But after a first half when Vanderbilt shot 29.2 percent, the Commodores hit nine of their first 17 in the second half. When James Siakam scored underneath with 6:10 left, that gave Vanderbilt its first lead since 3-0 at 46-45.
But then the Commodores went cold as Jones missed a pair of free throws.
Aaron Jones hit a jumper putting the Rebels ahead to stay with 5:48 to go the first of 11 straight points.
Henderson fed a pass to Perez for a layup. Then Odom lost the ball on the sideline leading to a scramble that ended with Henderson hitting a 3-pointer. Henderson then hit a second consecutive 3, pushing the lead to 55-46 with 3:57 left, and celebrated with a big fist pump in front of the Vanderbilt student section that had been booing him all night long when he touched the ball.
The Rebels easily finished off the win.
Henderson’s back-to-back 3-pointers were the highlight of the night for the senior guard who came in as the SEC’s best 3-point shooter and was named the league’s player of the week on Monday. He forced overtime here last season from about 30 feet out had trouble connecting Wednesday night. Henderson also missed a shot just after he crossed mid-court that bounced off the rim before the halftime buzzer.
“He hit some big shots at some crucial moments in the game that definitely gave them the momentum they needed to win,” Odom said.
The first half was sluggish and ugly with Ole Miss failing to take advantage of a 4-minute scoring drought by Vanderbilt and plenty of sloppy turnovers by the Commodores. The poor play continued into the second half as both teams combined to hit only 3 of their first 12 shots.
