Mississippi Rebels
Friday, November 28, 7:30pm
Niceville, Fla | Emerald Coast Classic
Last Season: Ole Miss finished 19-14 a year ago, including a 9-9 mark in the SEC, but missed the postseason. Their loss to Georgia in the opening round of the SEC Tournament cost them their 20th win, and possibly an NCAA at-large berth.
Last Meeting/All-Time Series: Creighton and Ole Miss have never met.
Head Coach: Andy Kennedy is the all-time winningest coach in Ole Miss history, owning 171 wins in eight seasons. He’s guided the Rebels to 20 wins in seven of those seasons, which is notable because Ole Miss had just seven 20 win seasons in the 96 years prior to that.
Top Returners: Ole Miss returns four of their five starters from a year ago, and an SEC-best five seniors. Jarvis Summers, who averaged 17.3 points and 3.8 assists a game last year, is the SEC’s active career leader with 1,233 points and 370 assists. The 6’3″ guard was one of the most improved players in the SEC, ranking eighth in the league in scoring, sixth in field goal percentage and fourth in assists and was named to the All-SEC second team.
LaDarius White was third on the team in scoring, averaging 7.1 points per game, and started 16 games. A 6’6″ guard, White is statistically the least-efficient shooter on the team — he made just 37% of his field goals (80-216) and 29% of his threes (25-86).
Aaron Jones, a 6’9″ forward, averaged 6.0 points and 6.6 rebounds a game last year, and ranked 3rd in the SEC and 54th in nation in blocks per game with 2.1. Impressively, of his 217 rebounds, 107 came on the offensive glass, meaning nearly 50% of his rebounds kept possessions alive.
Key Losses: The only starter gone from last year? Enigmatic star Marshall Henderson, who led the team in points at 19.0 a game and ranked third in the nation with 4.3 three-pointers a game, used up his eligibility in the spring. His talent was undeniable, but so were his off-court problems, so while losing his scoring will hurt, it’s possible that playing without him will be a case of addition by subtraction. Possible. Those 19 points and over 4 threes a game are gaudy numbers to try to replace.
Key Additions: Ole Miss added five newcomers to this year’s squad highlighted by a pair of fifth-year transfers in M.J. Rhett and Terence Smith. A presence in the low post, Rhett ranked 18th in the nation last year with nine double-doubles at Tennessee State, while Smith was a career 1,000-point scorer and 40 percent 3-point shooter (101-253) at Tennessee-Martin, and averaged 14.6 points a game last year for the Skyhawks.
Stefan Moody, a junior college transfer, also joins the Rebels after being named the Sunbelt Conference Freshman of the Year at FAU, where he averaged 15.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game.