OXFORD, Miss. — Mike White played point for four years at Ole Miss during the 1990s. He later spent seven seasons as an assistant coach on the program's sidelines. That's 11 years as a Rebel. Along the way, White made a lot of friends and forged lasting relationships, so it came as no surprise that when the Florida coach entered the post-game interview room Saturday he was greeted by some familiar faces and courteous greetings. 

"Hey Mike, how you doing?" asked one of those faces. 

White's reply, through a polite smile, was both expected and fitting. 

"Been better," he said. 

That's because a pair of Ole Miss present-day guards, Breein Tyree and Devontae Shuler, had just torched Florida for a combined 37 points to lead the Rebels to a 68-51 victory in their Southeastern Conference game at The Pavilion on an afternoon that was basically dominated by the home team. 

Mississippi took the lead four minutes in and never gave it back. Tyree and Shuler combined to make 14 of 28 shots, including six of 11 from the 3-point line, to pace the Rebels (12-11, 3-7) to 47.3-percent shooting on the afternoon. The Gators (14-9, 6-4), meanwhile, trailed by double-digits for the better part of the second half, made just 33.3 percent for the game and only 5-for-23 from deep (21.7 percent) — despite starting the day atop the SEC statistics in team field-goal and 3-point percentages — and turned the ball over 15 times. 

The loss was costly, as it not only came to a team situated toward the bottom of the league standings, but on a day when a victory could have moved the Gators within a single game of SEC co-leading LSU, Auburn and Kentucky. Instead, Florida fell into a quagmire of seven teams holding on between four and six conference wins. 

"Typical SEC road game," White said. "They're hard to get, and we weren't getting this one with the way we played … and they way they played." 

Just 25 days ago, Ole Miss came to Gainesville and was beaten 71-55, as UF was in control for all but a few minutes midway through the first half. The Rebels, though, played that one minus Tyree, the 6-foot-2 shooting guard and third-leading scorer in the league at 18.9 points per game, due to a back bruise he suffered in practice the day before. 

Clearly, he was missed that night. 

Tyree, coming off a career-high 38-point performance against South Carolina, tallied 10 of his team's first 21 points. The Rebels' led 11-8 when Shuler and Tyree hit 3s on consecutive trips to force White to call a timeout with the Gators down nine. The next two baskets after the stoppage were Tyree jumpers, one off a steal and length-of-the-floor take and pull-up, to move the margin to 13. 

"We knew we had to make their shooters bounce the ball," UF sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson. "We didn't do that and Tyree had a field day."

Tyree, averaging a league-best 22.9 points in SEC play, hit his second 3-pointer with 2:52 to go before the break to put Ole Miss ahead 31-19, but the Gators scored eight of the final 10 points of the period to trail 33-27 at intermission. UF opened the second period with the first two baskets and twice trailed by only two, including once with a possession that ended with grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. off on a 3-point attempt for the lead. 

Then Tyree banged a 3. 

Then another pull-up jumper. 

"He's a high-level scorer, one of the best in the country," Blackshear Jr. "We tried to do some things to disrupt him, in terms of ball-screen defense, but credit to him for being able to make some really tough shots and getting in rhythm early."

After Tyree's two straight buckets the lead was seven again four minutes into the period. Four minutes later, after an 8-0 blitz by the Rebels, the Gators trailed by a dozen and the closest they got the rest of the way that was eight. 
 
"We've totally shifted our focus to February and our players have bought into that," said Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis, whose team began SEC play with five straight losses, but now has won three of five, with the two losses coming in double-overtime against Auburn and on the road at LSU. "We never felt like we were not a good team, it just did not show on our record. We kept working and now we've built confidence with a couple of wins."

Tyree hit nine of his 19 shots and four of six 3-pointers. Shuler, two games removed from a career-high 26 at LSU, went 5-for-9 from the floor and two of five from distance to go with five assists and three steals. Forward K.J. Buffen added 14 points, nine rebounds and four assists.

Johnson led Florida with 16 points and 10 rebounds, tallying his fourth double-double of the season. Blackshear had 11 points and six rebounds. Around the rest of the lineup, sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard hit just two of nine shots and had three assists and three turnovers. Sophomore shooting guard Noah Locke went 3-for-9. Freshman backup guard Tre Mann, who hit a career-best three 3s three nights earlier, went scoreless in going 0-for-6 from the floor.

UF led for just 1:32 of the game, with its inability to string together stops, coupled with the cold shooting and turnovers, killing any opportunities to chip away at the Mississippi lead. 

Florida, of course, rallied from a 22-point second-half deficit Wednesday to beat Georgia at home, but the energy of those final 16 minutes in Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center did not travel on this road trip.

The Gators weren't coming back this time. 

"As I talked about after our last game against Georgia: 'Great comeback! Great win! But why are we down 22, if you're a high-level team?' " White said. "You can feel good about the result, but not about the way you played for 40 [minutes]."

So the Gators came to Mississippi with the goal playing a full 40. White said they played about 25, instead. Tyree and friends played more than that. 

"Maybe, if you play 40, you come in here and steal one," he said. "But it wasn't competitive at the end of the game." 

Yes, he'd been better. And so had his team. 

Now, together, they have to get better — much better — over the final month of the season.