Mikeal Brown-Jones injury update: Chris Beard reveals Ole Miss forward's status for NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Tournament is here and every team would love to be at full strength for it. However, for Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard, there are still questions about his team’s health. In particular, Mikeal Brown-Jones‘ status is still up in the air.

Beard briefly touched on Brown-Jones’ status at his press conference ahead of the NCAA Tournament. However, for the time being, it’s still unclear if he’s going to be ready to go for the first round of the tournament.

“Kind of day-to-day with Mikeal,” Chris Beard said. However, Beard did not elaborate further on his status in the NCAA Tournament.

Mikeal Brown-Jones last played on March 8th against Florida. In the meantime, he missed the SEC Tournament, which saw Ole Miss win a game before getting knocked out by Auburn in a low-scoring game. He also missed time in January with a concussion. However, it’s unclear what his current injury concern has been.

A transfer who previously played for VCU and UNC Greensboro, Mikeal Brown-Jones has been an important veteran presence coming off the bench for Beard and Ole Miss this season. He’s appeared in 28 games, making one start, and is averaging about 10.1 minutes per game. In that time, he’s averaging 4.1 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 0.4 assists per game.

As it stands now, Ole Miss is still waiting to learn its first round opponent. Instead, they’ll need to wait and see if North Carolina or San Diego State win their First Four game. The winner will then become the focus for Chris Beard and his team. That game will be played on Friday, which does give Mikeal Brown-Jones another day to prepare and get ready for the game.

Chris Beard calls out accusation that Ole Miss is a ‘fraud’

There has been some criticism of Ole Miss this season. In particular, one analyst referred to the team as a fraud. However, Chris Beard was highly critical of that comment going into the NCAA Tournament.

“I think we’ve got a good team. We just played in what people are calling the best conference in the history of college basketball as the [NCAA] Tournament starts, so we’ll see how it plays out. 10 [SEC] wins — some interesting things about our resume. Road wins, non-conference, BYU in the NCAA Tournament, Colorado State in the NCAA Tournament, Louisville in the NCAA Tournament. Purdue, we lost a one-possession game in overtime, and certainly in a conference with road wins at places like Alabama, recent home wins against teams like Tennessee,” Beard said.

“So, yeah, I think a lot of things could be said about our team, both good and bad. But fraud would not be a word that I would think about when I think about this year’s Ole Miss team.”