Ole Miss beats Mizzou 86-74 in Kim Anderson’s final game

DeAndre Burnett scored 23 points while Sebastian Saiz finished with 14 points, guiding Ole Miss to a 86 to 74 victory over Missouri on Thursday in the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament. The loss ends Mizzou’s run in the SEC tournament and marks Kim Anderson’s final game as Missouri head coach.

Anderson, who was told to step down more than two weeks ago, opened up about his time at Mizzou.

“I think when I walk out of here or when I leave, which will be tomorrow, I think that — I think we did some good things, Anderson said his team’s loss. “We didn’t generate enough money. And when you don’t do that in college athletics, you don’t get to keep your job. I’m not bitter. I certainly understand that. I understand that. You know, if you would have asked me when did you know you were going to get fired, I would have said probably the first day I took the job.”

“I’m proud of what we’ve done, and I know there’s a lot of people out there that aren’t. But there’s no one out there who sat in my shoes for the last three years and no one out there knows the challenges that we had. You guys don’t know it, nobody knows it but me.”

The Tigers, who were down as many as 17 points in the second half, made it a 10-point deficit multiple times. However, Mizzou had trouble containing the Rebels in the paint, as Mississippi scored 28 points in the paint. MU had 18 points in the paint.

It was a frustrating night for Missouri. Kim Anderson was assessed a technical foul in the middle of these second half for arguing over a call with an official. Russell Woods was also given a technical as well for his argument with a referee. Jordan Geist also received a flagrant foul, which sparked tension between both teams.

Kevin Puryear, Wednesday night’s hero for Missouri, scored 15 points. Terrence Phillips and Jordan Barnett also had 15 point games respectively.

Missouri finishes the year with a 8-24 record.