Mizzou basketball plays complete game, earns first true road win of the season over Ole Miss

Missouri men's basketball was forced to take several pauses while building a lead at Mississippi near the end of the first half Tuesday night.

Rebels coach Kermit Davis exhausted every timeout he had for the entire game before halftime — including three in the final five minutes of the first half — while trying to find a way to stop the Tigers.

No dice.

Missouri pushed its lead to 15 points by the intermission before taking home a 25-point victory.

"How many more timeouts they got?" Missouri guard Boogie Coleman said after the win. "I would've counted, but they were calling a lot."

Just three days after giving up a double-digit lead to Texas A&M, Missouri responded with exactly what coach Cuonzo Martin was looking for: a complete defensive effort.

That led to a 78-53 victory over the Rebels, the Tigers' first true road win of the season in a game where Missouri played aggressive, efficient and smart basketball.

In a far cry from Saturday's deflating loss against the Aggies, Missouri rebounded consistently, defended tenaciously and responded promptly to all of Ole Miss' scoring runs in Oxford.

Ole Miss cut the Missouri lead to 10 right after the under-eight media timeout in the second half, but the Tigers responded with a 15-2 run over the next five minutes to put the game out of reach with about two minutes to go.

Missouri improves to 8-9 overall and 2-3 in Southeastern Conference play.

Ole Miss falls to 9-8 and 1-4 in the SEC.

"We made plays," Martin said. "It's a great, great team win."

Amari Davis stole the spotlight with 23 points for Missouri on a perfect 10 of 10 from the field, becoming the first SEC player to finish a game with a perfect shooting stat line since Florida's Erik Murphy on Nov. 14, 2012.

Davis was the first Tiger to finish 10 of 10 from the floor since Jeff Warren against Oklahoma on March 4, 1992, and Davis did so by being aggressive in the mid-range. Whenever the Rebels gave him space on a defensive switch, Davis pulled the trigger.

"They didn't stop the ball, so that was my chance to shoot a mid-range shot," Davis said. "I was making it tonight."

For the second straight game, Missouri went into halftime sporting a comfortable lead with its defensive strengths.

The Tigers' defense suffocated Ole Miss in the waning minutes of the first half by forcing turnovers and defending well. Missouri didn't allow any easy points, but most importantly it didn't allow any second-chance points.

More: Mizzou basketball's search for consistency centers around solving turnover problems

On Saturday against Texas A&M, second-chance points hurt Missouri. On Tuesday, Missouri found a way to earn second-chance points itself.

Davis, who began bringing the ball up the court more against Ole Miss perhaps than he had been the entire season, led all Missouri players with 13 points in the first half. He punctuated his great half with an emphatic dunk in transition.

Missouri attempted only four 3-pointers in the first half, using its offensive possessions to drive and set up high-percentage shots. That continued in the second half, as the Tigers finished taking just seven shots from beyond the arc all night, shooting 4 of 7.

Those seven 3-point attempts were the fewest 3-pointers attempted by a Missouri team since Feb. 15, 2014, against Tennessee.

There were times against Texas A&M where Missouri had momentum and rhythm, but the Tigers would take an open 3-point attempt with time to spare on the shot clock. That didn't happen Tuesday, due to how Ole Miss played defense.

The Rebels were closing out actively. However, when Ole Miss would commit to a closeout, there wouldn't be any defensive help coming from the other side of the court.

"We just continued to attack," Coleman said. "We knew that driving down and getting to the rim was going to be a strength tonight."

Missouri got to the rim consistently as the Tigers bullied Ole Miss' zone defense, falling in line with what Martin wanted to see from his offense.

"It's not a case of me saying don't shoot the 3," Martin said. "But just be assertive. Be aggressive. When a 3-point shot presents itself, be ready to take the shot."

The Tigers pushed their lead to 16 points, but the Rebels began to heat up midway through the second half with a few made contested 3-pointers. Ronnie DeGray stifled that Ole Miss run with one of Missouri's few 3-pointers.

More: Inconsistent Mizzou basketball falls to Texas A&M 67-64 after second-half collapse

Some of the usual issues remained for Missouri. The Tigers still turned the ball over more than Ole Miss and had a defensive lapse that allowed a 6-0 Rebels run in just a minute.

But that didn't ultimately factor into the outcome. The defense played perhaps its best game of the season as the Tigers outrebounded the Rebels and took care of defensive rebounding down the stretch. MU outrebounded Ole Miss 40-26.

The large lead allowed Martin to empty the bench late in the game, as DeGray capped the game with a dunk with just a minute remaining.

The most significant development from the Tigers was how they didn't crack when Ole Miss put together some momentum. The Rebels boasted more size, which did lead to a handful of runs.

The focus, however, was on finishing. Martin said this Missouri team was one of the first times in his career his team hasn't had a "defensive DNA" due to the number of newcomers.

On Tuesday, Missouri was playing for pride, and it showed on the players' end.

"We put together 40 minutes today," Coleman said.

Chris Kwiecinski is the sports editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune, overseeing University of Missouri and Boone County sports coverage. Follow him on Twitter @OchoK_ and contact him at CKwiecinsk@gannett.com or 435-414-3261.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou plays complete game in first road win of the year over Ole Miss