Walking Past Memphis: Ole Miss ‘locked in’ for Tuesday showdown with Mount St. Mary’s
A host of Ole Miss basketball fans stormed the court after the Rebels’ win over rival Memphis on Saturday.
The Rebels themselves only took about 10 minutes in the postgame locker room to appreciate the accomplishment of their 80-77 thriller before moving on to Mount St. Mary’s.
The still-perfect Rebels (7-0) host the Mountaineers (2-5) Tuesday at 7 p.m. CT on SEC Network+.
“We started that after the Memphis game, like in the locker room right afterwards,” Ole Miss assistant Al Pinkins said Monday, in an interview with the Spirit’s Chuck Rounsaville and the Rebel Yell Hotline. “I don’t think we really celebrated.
“They’re 2-5, but they could be 5-2. They played in some close games (and) beat Sienna (Sunday) by 30 points. They have really good players. Dakota Leffew is a kid that can play in the SEC. They’ve got a couple players on their team that can play in our league.
“Our guys are locked in. We started scout yesterday, and guys did a really good job (Monday in practice) locking in on what we need to do to win the game. I’ll be shocked if our don’t come out and give great effort.”
Ole Miss won three of its first five games by three points or less against lower-level non-conference competition.
The Rebels took their play to the next level a week ago.
They first waxed NC State, an NCAA Tournament team a year ago, by 20. The win over Memphis was the follow-up, in a game they trailed by as many as 11 in the second half.
The 2023-24 Rebels, with 12 of their 16 players either first-year transfers or freshmen, are an ever-evolving contender. Most encouraging is how they’ve quickly come together and gradually improved, including the clearance of Moussa Cisse, a former five-star prospect and two-time transfer from Oklahoma State and Memphis.
“You’re talking about the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year,” Pinkins, who coaches the Rebel bigs, said. “So, right out of the gate, he adds defensive presence with his shot-blocking (and) ability to guard ball screens and be able to switch ball screens and really defend 1-5. He’s really athletic. His motor runs all the time, and he’s a good leader. He’s one of the best leaders on our team.”
“He can play defense all the way out to the three-point line,” added all-time Ole Miss basketball great Murphy Holloway.
Holloway is serving as a graduate assistant for the team this season.
He continued, “He’s going to bring a whole different level of defense, toughness and leadership to our team.”
Key in the turnaround from the sluggish offensive start has been a deliberate, hard evaluation of players from Pinkins and the rest of the Rebel coaches.
“It’s our process,” he said. “The guys that weren’t shooting well, we met with them. Showed them video, what they were doing wrong and fundamentals. We really believe in our process. We feel like we work harder than anybody in the country in skill development and shooting and all those phases. Eventually, like Beard said, our process would catch up and we’d shoot the ball better. We had no doubt we were going to shoot the ball better at some point.”
