NCAAB

Scotty Pippen Jr. nets 21 as Vanderbilt tops Ole Miss

Scotty Pippen Jr. had 22 points and visiting rallied in the second half before holding on for a 63-61 win over in an SEC contest Saturday at Oxford, Miss.

Jordan Wright scored 14 with 11 rebounds and Liam Robbins added 12 and six boards for the Commodores (15-15, 7-11 SEC), who trailed by 10 in the first half, but shot 50 percent in the second half to snap a three-game losing streak — and six-game slide on the road.

Matthew Murrell and Austin Crowley each scored 15 for Ole Miss (13-18, 4-14), which shot 34.5 percent in the second half to drop its fourth straight contest.

With the game tied at 47-47, Pippen, who entered as the league’s top scorer averaging 20.5 points, snapped a personal drought of 25 minutes without a field goal by throwing down a breakaway dunk at the 8:05 mark of the second half. Vanderbilt was up 51-49 with just over seven minutes remaining, when its next nine points came via Pippen threes to push their lead to 60-53 with 3:51 to go.

Five consecutive points from Murrell got Ole Miss within two, but a Robbins three-point play put Vanderbilt up five. Murrell canned a 3-pointer to make it a 63-61 contest with 53.2 seconds left, but James White’s last-second shot missed the iron.

Ole Miss led by six at the break, but Vanderbilt used a 7-0 spurt to tie the game at 35-35 with 15:17 left in the second half. The Commodores were down 45-41, but back-to-back threes from Trey Thomas and Myles Stute gave them a two-point edge with 11:56 to go. Ole Miss recovered to tie the game on a Sammy Hunter bucket.

Ole Miss, which made half of its 30 first-half attempts, used an early 6-0 run to take a 10-5 lead and eventually padded that advantage as Crowley scored five straight points to give the Rebels a 27-17 edge. Vanderbilt trailed 29-19 late in the first half, but plugged away and got within four until White’s corner 3-pointer at the buzzer put Ole Miss ahead 33-26 at the break.

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