It’s safe to say Ole Miss men’s basketball isn’t having the type of season it wanted or expected.
A year after advancing to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament, the Rebels are on the cusp of being removed from the conversation all together.
With an 11-12 overall record, including a 3-7 showing in SEC games, Ole Miss is on the outside of ESPN’s latest NCAA Tournament bracket projections. Ole Miss is ranked No. 81 in the current men’s college basketball NET rankings and No. 68 in KenPom rankings.
Complicating matters for the Rebels is they have only eight games left in the regular season, leaving them little time to reverse course. In fact, the time to do so might just be Wednesday night when Alabama comes to Oxford.
It’d be a good time for repeat performance of last season’s historic upset win over then-No. 4 Alabama. The Rebels trailed by four points at halftime of the January 14, 2025 game in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and dominated the second half, outscoring the Crimson Tide 42-28 on the way to a 74-64 victory.
In that game, Malik Dia had one of his best collegiate games with 23 points scored, 19 rebounds and two blocks. He hasn’t been able to duplicate a game like that this season. He scored a season-high 27 points against Alabama A&M in December and has had 10 or more rebounds in five games this season and none more than 11.
Wednesday night would be a good time for Dia to break that trend.
One thing in the Rebels’ favor is that they’re finally playing a home game after four-straight road games.
“It’s been a challenge. We’re a no-excuse program, but it’s a fine line as a coach, fighting for your players while communicating with your fan base,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said after Rebels’ 79-68 loss at Texas last Saturday. “We started league play with seven of ten on the road. Some of it was weather-related. You can’t control that.
“We’re looking forward to getting back to the best college town in the country. I hope our fans stick with us. You saw our team today. We played with fight and heart. That second-half effort matters. This game was inches away from ‘start the bus,’ but our guys kept fighting.
“I have a lot of optimism. I believe in this team today just like I did at SEC Media Days. We’ve got a lot of basketball left.”
Ole Miss doesn’t have much margin left, and everyone inside the program knows it. The Rebels have shown flashes of the team they believed they could be, but flashes won’t save a season that’s running out of runway.
Wednesday night won’t fix everything, but it does offer something this group desperately needs — a chance to reset at home, punch back against a heavyweight, and prove there’s still some fight left in a year that hasn’t gone to script.
