Skip to main content
Join Now
Team Avatar
Ole Miss

SEC fines Ole Miss $500,000 for court-storming vs. No. 4 Tennessee

On3 imageby:Sam Gillenwater•03/07/25•

samdg_33

Ole Miss (Court Storm against Tennessee)
Wesley Hale | Imagn Images

Ole Miss pulled a top five upset at home over No. 4 Tennessee on Wednesday. Because of their celebration of that, the Rebels will now be paying the price again, according to the Southeastern Conference.

Per a release from the league, Ole Miss received a $500,000 fine from the SEC for the court-storming it had after a 78-76 win over the Volunteers. That is the price for a third offense after a pair of instances where the Rebels stormed the field in football, with one from a 55-49 win over No. 13 LSU in 2023 and one from a 28-10 win over No. 3 Georgia in 2024. The conference also cited them for a separate incident in this game where a fan threw an object onto the court.

“Keith Carter and the Ole Miss leadership have been diligent in updating its postgame basketball court access policy and it was encouraging to see the vast majority of fans obey the new policy by remaining in the stands immediately following Wednesday’s game with Tennessee” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in the statement. “It is disappointing that a small number of fans have created this problem, but the postgame court incursion by fans who disregarded the policy violates the expectations of the access to competition area policy.”

“As the Conference continues to review field rushing and court storming policy, we need to consider all that is now being done to adjust fan behavior including reducing or removing financial penalties when the administrative leadership is ignored by a small group of people,” Sankey added. “Additionally, the game was disrupted when debris was thrown onto the court, which is a violation of SEC sportsmanship policies and individuals identified as having thrown debris are to be banned from attending future athletic events.”

The SEC’s policy has compounding fines for violations of access to competition area. The first offense is for $100,000 while the second increases to $250,000. Every other violation from there is a total of $500,000. The schools pay out the fines to the opposing school to which the infraction happened. This is per the system that has been in place since 2004 but with the fines having increased since the SEC Spring Meetings in 2023.

There was some question if this court-storming would qualify as a violation for the Rebels. Only a few fans or students came onto the floor before the Volunteers exited, which is when the remainder of the people came onto the court. Still, it did per the league’s release on Friday.

Ole Miss won by two over the Vols this week in one of its biggest victories of the season. The Rebels went and won by 10 against No. 4 Alabama in Tuscaloosa earlier in conference play but had lost seven of their last dozen since, including losing six of seven against ranked opponents. However, in a back-and-forth matchup, the Rebels eventually pulled away late in the second half behind 19 points from Jaemyn Brakefield.

Ole Miss celebrated accordingly after a highly-rated win in the final week of their regular season. They’ll just have to pay for it, with it costing a half-million every time now, based on the ruling from the SEC.