Both Ole Miss programs continue to trend towards meaningful basketball games in March
The Southeastern Conference season is in its infancy for both the Ole Miss men’s and women’s basketball teams but after the first week postseason hopes are not dashed after rough starts.
Ole Miss saw both of its basketball teams take tough losses over the weekend but neither did damage to their respective NCAA Tournament prospects. The men and women squads are trying to reach the NCAA Tournament in the same season for the first time in their respective histories.
Tuesday brought about the newest batch of projections, or bracketology, for the NCAA Tournament and Ole Miss had both its programs firmly in their respective Field of 68.
ESPN’s Charlie Creme projects the women’s tournament brackets and continued to have the Rebels bumped up to an 8-Seed in Portland Region 2, playing 9-Seed Maryland. Of course being the 8-seed means Ole Miss is paired up with a No. 1 seed and that is UCLA in the Los Angeles quadrant. The Bruins are playing 16-Seed Hawaii in Creme’s projection.
The Rebels (11-4, 1-1 SEC) return home this week, hosting Auburn (11-4, 0-2) on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. CT before traveling to Starkville for in-state showdown against Mississippi State (13-4, 0-2) on Sunday at 4 p.m. CT
Auburn enters the game with a NET ranking of 74 while Mississippi State sits at No. 32 ahead of its mid-week clash against against Arkansas on Thursday. Coming off the loss to LSU this past Sunday, Ole Miss has a NET ranking of 53.
“Two good games this week. Two opponents that have high NET rankings (and) can be great résumé games for us,” said Ole Miss women’s head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin on Tuesday. “An opportunity for us to come out and continue to build with Auburn first.”
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The Ole Miss men took one on the chin in Knoxville to open up SEC play but the NCAA Tournament is a goal still well within reach.
Dropping their first game of the season after tying a program-best 13 straight wins to open the year the Rebels (13-1, 0-1) look to regroup with a pair of home games this week.
Starting on Wednesday with Florida (10-4, 0-1) it is a chance for Chris Beard to notch his first SEC win as the Ole Miss head coach before hosting Vanderbilt (5-9, 0-1) on Saturday.
The loss to No. 5 Tennessee was a humbling one but when it pertained to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and his newest tournament projections the Rebels stayed steady. Ole Miss is still projected by Lunardi as the 8-Seed in the East Region, playing 9-Seed Miami in the first round in Indianapolis and paired with No. 1 overall seed Purdue for a potential second round meeting.
Last Friday the Rebels were projected as a 6-Seed in the East Region by CBS Sports Jerry Palm, taking on 11-Seed Utah State and paired with 3-Seed Kentucky. Palms updated projection will more than likely slide Ole Miss down but they might stay where they are based on Wednesday’s result against the Gators.
