OXFORD — Jamarion Sharp came to Ole Miss basketball coach Chris Beard this week with an idea.

Sharp, a 7-foot-5 transfer from Western Kentucky, had started every game this season for the Rebels leading into Wednesday's game with Florida. It wouldn't bother Sharp, he told Beard, if fellow 7-footer Moussa Cisse got the nod for a change.

"Normally, what life does is it returns the favor pretty quick," Beard said.

And Sharp's return was bountiful.

Coming off the bench, he blocked nine shots in a 103-85 win over the Gators (10-5, 0-2 SEC) at the SJB Pavilion. That broke a school record held by Reginald Buckner, who blocked eight shots in 2011 against Arkansas, and Ansu Sesay, who did the same in 1997 against Mississippi State.

The mark fell one shy of Sharp's career high, set with the Hilltoppers in 2021, when he blocked 10 shots against Alabama A&M. Sharp led all of college basketball in blocks per game during the last two seasons. He knows shot-blocking rhythm when he feels it.

"After the first one, it just feels like I can do more," Sharp said. "It's really all about timing. And once I'm in that zone, I time everything. Tonight I was in that zone."

Sharp's unselfish gesture helped spark an emphatic response by the Rebels (14-1, 1-1) to a disastrous effort at Tennessee to start conference play.

With an opportunity to show that their 13-0 run through nonconference play wasn't fool's gold, the Rebels instead got run out of the gym in a 90-64 loss to the Vols last Saturday. It was the kind of performance that allows doubt to fester. But Beard sensed in the buildup to Wednesday's contest that his team would rather fight than fold.

"I did think we'd respond tonight," he said. "I know who those guys are. I was out there on the early Friday mornings in the summer at 6 a.m. I've been there in two-a-days. Even though we won some games to start the season, we still had a lot of adversity. We don't base our performance on the scoreboard only, we base our performance on where we'd like to be. So yeah, I did have a really good feeling."

After poor outings against the Vols, Ole Miss' two headliners, Matthew Murrell and Allen Flanigan, both shot over 50% and combined for 40 points against the Gators.

Brandon Murray, who topped Beard's list of players who needed a bounce-back, connected on 4 of 5 attempts for nine points.

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Cisse scored six points and grabbed six boards in just 12 minutes, struggling with foul trouble. Beard thought he looked like the best player on the floor at times in his first start as a Rebel. Combined with a career night from Jaemyn Brakefield, those players gave the Rebels exactly the response the situation demanded.

The Rebels earned the right to stay off the ropes, holding serve at home in SEC play and collecting a head-to-head win against another program that will be vying for an NCAA Tournament bid.

They have their approach in the build-up – and an unselfish gesture by the 7-foot-5 rim protector the Rebels affectionately call Books – to thank.

"When you're talented and your heart's in the right place, then good things are gonna happen eventually," Beard said of Sharp. "It's happened a couple of times in my career, but not many, Books coming in and basically just trying to help his teammate Moussa get going."

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Jamarion Sharp sets Ole Miss basketball blocked shot record vs Florida