Ole Miss basketball’s 86-83 season-opening win over UT Martin on Friday night was very much a hard hat tour of an offense still scrambling to finish up its post-Stefan Moody construction. With its fulcrum, big man Sebastian Saiz, limited to just 17 minutes by foul trouble, the Rebels’ offensive machinery lurched and sputtered at times, coughing up 24 turnovers and letting UTM hang close enough to take not one, but two game-tying shot attempts in the final 7 seconds.
Saiz’s absence pushed the scoring onus outwards to the guards, and that’s where this game did provide some encouragement.