Ole Miss fends off Oral Roberts in overtime, 95-88

Stock up on Zantac and Tums if you're planning to watch Ole Miss basketball this season.

Deandre Burnett set a Paradise Jam record in scoring and three point shots made to lead the Rebels to an opening round win over the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles, 95-88.

Burnett was 9-of-12 from behind the arc and scored 41 points as the Rebels outpaced ORU in overtime. Senior Rasheed Brooks opened scoring in the overtime frame with five points of his total 11 to give the Rebels a lead it would not relinquish.

The Rebels will face Saint Joseph's on Sunday at 5 p.m. CST in the semi-finals of the Paradise Jam.

Ole Miss is now 3-0 early in the season with all of its victories coming in single digits.

Andy Kennedy said his team looked "very tentative out of the gate" in the first half, which the Rebels closed with an 8-0 run to lead 37-34 at the break.

Part of the unsure play had to be because of two early fouls from Sebastian Saiz. The big man was credited with his second foul with 15:30 left to go in the first half, and F. Albert Owens for ORU racked up 22 points down low as Saiz was not able to play as aggressive on defense.

Saiz finished the game with 11 points and 6 rebounds.

In the second half, the Rebels switched to a 1-3-1 three quarters press that gave ORU some issues bringing the ball down court and led to a few turnovers, which kept the game close.

Terence Davis continues to be a spark plug for the offense as he aggressively pursues the ball no matter what phase of the game he is in. Davis finished with 13 points on 5-of-15 shooting but notched five rebounds and three steals in the game.

One disturbing trend early on this year is that the Rebels have not been able to pull away from their competition, but we did see a glimmer in the overtime period as Ole Miss built a nine-point lead and stifled ORU into no points for the first four minutes of OT. Hopefully, this becomes a building block for games to come.