Ole Miss Ends Pirates' Five-Game Winning Streak
January 04, 2004 | Men's Basketball
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) --- Justin Reed scored 27 points as Mississippi won their sixth consecutive game with a 65-49 victory over East Carolina on Saturday.
Reed, who missed much of the second half because of foul trouble, was 10-for-16 from the field and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.
Aaron Harper added 15 points for the Rebels (8-3), who never trailed in their final non-conference game this season.
Corey Rouse led East Carolina (8-2) with 12 points.
The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for the Pirates, who defeated Ole Miss last season at home.
East Carolina shot a season low 17-for-49 from the field, which included a perfect 5-for-5 performance from Rouse.
The Rebels started by hitting five consecutive shots from the field to take an 11-0 lead.
''I wish I could tell you why we started so well, other than we were focused,'' Ole Miss coach Rod Barnes said. ''But we needed it. East Carolina is a really good basketball team and this was a huge win for us with the SEC season starting on Wednesday. This really helps our confidence.''
East Carolina's Rouse broke the scoring drought with a layup, but the Pirates never got closer than 10 points again.
''They knocked us back on our heels and we were not able to recover,'' East Carolina coach Bill Herrion said. ''I knew coming in that Justin Reed would be tough. The thing about Reed is that he is hard to match up against and tonight, we just had no answers for him.''
The Rebels led at halftime 42-26, after leading by as many as 22 points.
The biggest lead came at 36-14 on a 3-point shot by Todd Abernethy with 7:08 left.
East Carolina pulled to 49-39 with 8:18 left on a Derrick Wiley jumper.
Ole Miss went without a field goal for more than nine minutes while forwards Reed and Eddie were sidelined with foul trouble.
Reserve forwards Marvin Moore and Chris Rhodes scored on consecutive offensive rebounds.
The baskets were the only points scored by Moore and Rhodes, but ended any comeback hopes for the Pirates.
In the closing five minutes, Reed and Harper accounted for the final 10 points for the Rebels.
''The fast start turned out to be the difference,'' Harper said. ''East Carolina beat us at their place last year and we knew we would have to play well. We were focused, especially early. We have not been playing well early in games this season, but we solved that today.''
The Rebels finished 25-of-47 from the field and outrebounded East Carolina 31-27.
