GameDay Primer: Beard, Rebel basketball have helped put Ole Miss athletics in rare company

Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss football Rebels are fresh off their second-ever 10-win regular season.

And yet they still weren’t the first Rebel team to 11 wins in 2023. 

That distinction belongs to a rejuvenated Ole Miss men’s basketball program under first-year head coach Chris Beard. The Rebels are one of just three undefeated teams remaining in college basketball.

They’re the last unbeaten in the SEC.

Ole Miss is perfect through its first 11 games for only the fourth time in history. The Rebels last pulled off the feat in 2007-08. They’re riding their fourth-longest all-time win streak.

“We do appear to be kind of a team that does have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder right now,” Beard said recently. 

Beard is aiming to make Ole Miss the fourth separate program he’s led to the NCAA Tournament since 2016. 

Three of those teams — among them, now, Ole Miss — opened 10-0, including his 2019 Texas Tech Red Raiders, who reached the national title game. Ole Miss has made just nine tournament appearances in its 100-plus-year history.

The Rebels are certainly on their way this season. Just this week they were ranked for the first time since January of 2019. They came in at No. 25 in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. 

Ole Miss is one of just three FBS programs in the country to start 10-0 in basketball and also compile a 10-win football season in football. The others are James Madison and Oklahoma.

“We’re going to lose a game at some point,” said Walker Jones, who heads up the Grove Collective, the leading NIL avenue for Ole Miss athletics. “But I think that’s also probably when (Beard’s) going to be at his best.

“He’s such a fighter and competitor, when we hit a rough patch and don’t play well and take a loss, the team, it’s not going to stack on itself. That’s when Chris Beard’s at his best.”

Next up is Southern Miss (6-5) in Biloxi on Saturday at 1 p.m. CT. 

The game, to be played in the Mississippi Coast Coliseum, will not be televised. However, it can be heard on the Ole Miss Radio Network.

“I think a big part of Ole Miss is taking the brand to other places in our great state,” Beard said Tuesday and after the Rebels’ blowout win over Troy. “We’re proud to go to Biloxi this season. Looking forward to seeing all the Ole Miss people and alumni and fans down on the coast.

“Obviously we have a lot of respect for Southern Miss and what (head coach) Jay (Ladner) has done there. So it should be a great college basketball game between two schools from the state of Mississippi.”

SERIES HISTORY VS. SOUTHERN MISS

Ole Miss and USM first faced off over 100 years ago. 

The Rebels, on back-to-back days in January of 1922, defeated the then-Mississippi Normal. They won the first six before Southern Miss pulled off an 82-73 win in Hattiesburg on December 15, 1966. The teams began a four-game series meeting in Jackson from 1975-1979.

Ole Miss leads Southern Miss 18-6 in the series, including a 5-2 advantage when playing in a neutral location. They each have a win apiece in games played in Biloxi; the Rebels won in 1993, while the Golden Eagles came out on top in 2008.

The teams last played in 2011. Southern Miss picked up an 86-82 win at home.

SCOUTING THE GOLDEN EAGLES

Southern Miss won 25 games last season and have wins over William Carey, Xavier (La.), Milwaukee, UAB, Northwestern State and Lamar so far on the 2023-24 campaign. Former Rebel Austin Crowley leads the Golden Eagles in scoring (16.0 points per game), while 7-foot center Tegra Izay is adding a team-high 6.1 rebounds.USM is averaging 4.4 blocks, the 75th-best mark in the NCAA, and 8.0 steals, the 80th.

Ladner is in his 10th season as an NCAA head coach and fifth with the Golden Eagles. He lifted USM, his alma mater, to its winningest season in eight years a year ago. He previously coached five seasons at SELA, where he won 76 total games.

TEN OUGHTA DO IT, DON’T YOU THINK?

Ole Miss senior guard Matthew Murrell set a new Ole Miss record for single-game steals (10) in the Rebels’ win over Troy. 

He also added 18 points to secure the first double-double of his career, and the first for Ole Miss in its history involving steals. Murrell tied the SEC record for most steals in a game. They were the most in the conference since 1991. 

Even more, Murrell tied for the 25th-most in a game in NCAA history. Ole Miss, as a team, had 16 steals against the Trojans, a record for the SJB Pavilion, which opened in 2016. Murrell is second in the SEC and No. 22 in college basketball in average steals (2.45).

“This was my first time with 10 steals,” Murrell said afterwards. “Most I had before this was probably seven or eight. My first career college double-double, it’s really a big moment. Even better that it happened on my birthday.”

THA BLOCK IS HOT

Ole Miss is averaging 6.7 blocks per game to rank sixth in the country. 

Further, the Rebels are holding opponents to just 39.5 percent shooting from the floor — good for No. 42 nationally. 

Western Kentucky transfer Jamarion Sharp — the tallest player in college basketball at 7-foot-5 — sits atop the SEC in both blocks per game (2.82) and blocks (31). He’s fourth and seventh, respectively, in the NCAA.

Sharp finished with six blocks against Troy. Those tied for the seventh-most in a game in Ole Miss history.

*MIKE BREEN VOICE* “BANG!”

Ole Miss is No. 14 in the country in three-point efficiency this season (39.2 percent). The Rebels have already shot 50 percent or better in four games — the most in an entire season since 2024-15. Ole Miss, that year, shot at least 50 percent five times.

The Rebels made 12 of 21 (57.1 percent) and 10 of 18 (55.6 percent) against California and Temple, respectively. Their current shooting mark would be the second-highest all-time at Ole Miss in a single season.