The Texas Longhorns take on the Ole Miss Rebels on Wednesday night in an SEC Tournament college basketball matchup. The game tips off at 7:00 p.m. ET in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Longhorns are listed as 6.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook, with the total set at O/U 145.5 points. Below is my full preview, prediction and pick for this SEC Tournament college basketball matchup.
Texas vs. Ole Miss prediction, preview
Ole Miss had a disastrous SEC campaign, finishing in second-to-last place in the conference. The Rebels started off SEC play 3-2, then proceeded to win just one of their final 13 games. Just last season, Chris Beard led this Ole Miss program to a Sweet 16. This season, it was one of the worst teams in the SEC. The Rebels certainly missed standout guard Sean Pedulla, who led the team in scoring and assists last season. However, there was much more than just one player missing this season. Ole Miss played at a much slower pace this season, ranking 258th in adjusted tempo, compared to 143rd the year prior. The entire team seems to lack intensity and desire.
Texas is one of the bubble teams to monitor in this SEC Tournament. According to Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology, Texas is one of the last four teams with a bye in the field. If Texas loses this game to Ole Miss, it might not knock the Longhorns out of the NCAA Tournament, but it could push them into the First Four, requiring them to play their way into the Round of 64. If Texas can go on a run and win a couple of games, it could bump them up to the 8/9-seed line, rather than a 10 or 11 seed, giving them a much more favorable matchup in the opening round. If Texas wins this game, it will take on Georgia in the next round, a team the Longhorns beat by 20 points earlier this season.
Texas vs. Ole Miss pick
My best bet for this game is on Texas to win and cover the 6.5-point spread. This Ole Miss team seemed completely defeated down the stretch. It had chances to get a couple of wins against the other bottom-dwellers in the conference, South Carolina and LSU, down the stretch, and lost both games. When these teams faced off earlier this season, Texas won handily by 11 points. In that game, Ole Miss had no answer for Texas’s 7-foot center Matas Vokietaitis. Vokietaitis had 27 points and seven boards in that game. Texas also has the best individual scorer in this game, Dailyn Swain. The duo of Swain and Vokietaitis should be too much for Ole Miss to handle. Texas ranks 10th in the nation in offensive rating and could run Ole Miss out of the gym in this one.
