Ole Miss men’s basketball enters SEC play ranked No. 22 in latest AP Top 25 poll
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss men’s basketball has moved up two spots in the Associated Press (AP) poll to No. 22. The Rebels knocked off Bryant, 95-78, Sunday to move to 13-0, tying the team for the best start in school history.
“When I think of those kinds of things, I just think of the players,” head coach Chris Beard said after Sunday’s win.
“The players deserve all the credit…and certainly the players we recruited, both high school and portal guys, but I’ll say this about records and things. Like, if we’re gonna do the things that we wanna get done here, while we came to Oxford, there’s gonna be a lot of records that need to be approached and broken, over the years and over the next months weeks.”
Chris Beard
Ole Miss (13-0) starts Southeastern Conference (SEC) play on the road at No. 5 Tennessee (9-3) this coming Saturday, January 6.
The win Sunday gave head coach Chris Beard his 250th career win at the NCAA level.
2️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ and counting 📈
Congrats on securing your 250th career win at the NCAA level, @CoachBeard!#HottyToddy | #BuildTheCulture pic.twitter.com/EkMQPeYUNW
— Ole Miss Men’s Basketball (@OleMissMBB) December 31, 2023
With the presence of returnees Jaemyn Brakefield and Matthew Murrell from last year’s team leading the way, combined with the additions of Jaylen Murray, Jamarion Sharp, Allen Flanigan, Brandon Murray and Moussa Cisse, Coach Beard and the Rebels have already equalled the total number of wins from last season’s team.
Currently, Murrell is averaging 17 points per game, first on the team, while Flanigan has notched a team-high 7.5 rebounds per. Game. JuJu Murray is averaging 3.7 assists per game.
Big 7-foot-5 Jamarion Sharp, not surprisingly, leads the team with 2.5 blocks per game, while Murrell is averaging 2.3 steals per game.
Sharp talked after the win over Bryant about the need to continue improving.
“No matter how good it’s been, you always have room for improvement. Always have room for improvement…that’s how you get better. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been finding the same thing in terms of the program.”
~ Jamarion Sharp on getting better
As Ole Miss enters league play, the level of competition is obviously going to take a dramatic step upward. Nevertheless, Coach Beard believes his team can compete for the title.
“When you enter conference play, it’s all about consistency,” Beard explained. “If you dissect anybody’s non-conference schedule in the SEC, you’ll find plenty of reasons to justify why this team can be a real factor,” Beard said.
“I think as we continue to embrace defense, as we continue to embrace possession-by-possession basketball, I do think we have a chance to be competitive in the SEC. That was always one of our objectives this first year. I think there is a way to win every game on the schedule that’s remaining.”
Coach Beard
Ole Miss joins No. 3 Houston and No. 19 James Madison as the only remaining unbeaten teams in the country.
The full Top 25 can be found below:
- Purdue
- Kansas
- Houston
- UConn
- Tennessee
- Kentucky
- Marquette
- North Carolina
- Ilinois
- Arizona
- Oklahoma
- BYU
- Colorado State
- Duke
- Memphis
- Clemson
- Florida Atlantic
- Baylor
- James Madison
- Texas
- Wisconsin
- Ole Miss
- Providence
- Gonzaga
- Auburn
Up Next
The Rebels will open SEC play in Knoxville on January 6th when they take on the Tennessee Volunteers in a top-25 matchup. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn's love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.
