Rebels Run Past Hokies

Mississippi 81, Virginia Tech 72

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Chris Warren scored five of his 22 points during a 9-0 second half run Wednesday night and Mississippi beat Virginia Tech 81-72 in the NIT quarterfinals to earn a trip to Madison Square Garden in New York.

Ole Miss (24-10) led 51-49 with 10:49 to play before Warren's layup sparked the burst. He later added a 3-pointer, Eniel Polynice hit a jumper and Kenny Williams made a layup to cap the spurt, which gave the Rebels a 60-49 lead with 8:22 to play.

Mississippi will face Ohio State in the semifinals.

The Hokies (21-14), who got 23 points from Deron Washington in the final game of his college career, never got closer than seven thereafter in a game that wasn't really as close as the score. Virginia Tech was outrebounded 46-23 and shot under 40 percent.

"It was pretty tough because those guys are real big," Washington said. "They pretty much out toughed us the whole game."

Mississippi shot better than 49 percent and grabbed 16 offensive rebounds. Dwayne Curtis and Williams each had 11 rebounds.

"The SEC is a big boy league, and we led that league in rebounding margin, and we did it over the course of a 16-game season," Mississippi Coach Andy Kennedy said. "All we had to do tonight was come out and be who we are, and that's what we did."

Curtis added 17 points, Williams had 10 points and David Huertas finished with 16 points and seven rebounds.

A.D. Vassallo scored 16 points for the Hokies, but missed 15 of his 21 field goal tries, and Malcolm Delaney scored 14. Vassallo had seven assists and Delaney five.

The Rebels led 33-31 at halftime and never trailed again. Virginia Tech drew even at 46 with 12 minutes left on J.T. Thompson's layup, but Huertas hit one of his four 3-pointers 14 seconds later and the Hokies eventually fell as many as 13 points down.

Virginia Tech, which blew out UAB on Monday night, 75-49, started the same way against Mississippi, scoring 12 of the first 15 points to fire up the crowd of 9,615.

But the Rebels responded quickly with an 18-5 run and led 21-17 after 11:30.

"Tonight, we didn't come out and play the way we're capable of playing," Washington said. "That just took us down. That hurts pretty bad, but we have to move on from that."