Ole Miss basketball returns home after tough road trip
The first road trip of the season, to South Carolina, didn’t go how Kermit Davis or the rest of the Ole Miss men’s basketball team expected.
The Rebels now return to Oxford for more fine-tuning ahead of Southeastern Conference play.
Ole Miss (3-2) went 1-2 at the Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic, losing to Marquette and Boise State with a win over Elon sandwiched in between. The three-game excursion exposed potential issues at the free-throw line, as well the need for more consistent shot-makers.
With a little over a month before conference games begin (up first is Florida on Dec. 29), Ole Miss opens the first of two home stands — with a game against Western Kentucky in Atlanta on Dec. 11 mixed in — on Friday.
The second consists of four games and ends with Florida.
During their stay in Charleston last weekend, the Rebels shot a combined 61.2 percent (30-49) from the charity stripe. Their best performance was against Boise State, shooting a perfect 6-6, but they got to the line the most against Elon (18-28).
Ole Miss is shooting just over 63 percent from the free throw line, good for 308th out of 350 Division I schools.
They Rebels are 13th in the SEC, only above Mississippi State (62 percent).
Davis tried out some different starting lineups over the weekend, including Matthew Murrell getting the nod over Austin Crowley.
Crowley had been starting along with Jarkel Joiner at one of two guard positions, however, he came off the bench in the final two in the Charleston Classic.
Murrell averaged 6.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists in his first two starts of the season.
“(Murrel’s) played really, really hard,” Davis said following the Elon game. “We’re going to start some different lineups from time to time.
“Robert (Allen) will be back in the starting lineups at times. Matt, (Crowley) and even Tye Fagen, it’s kind of between he and Tye tonight who to start. We talk about it all the time talking about guys playing starter minutes, (Murrell) played 27 minutes so he played starter minutes.”
The Rebels get a get-better game, of sorts, on Friday in Mississippi Valley State.
The Delta Devils (0-2) are the first opponent in a three straight at The Pavilion at Ole Miss, followed by Rider (3-4) on Tuesday and No. 9 Memphis (4-0) on Dec. 4.
Ole Miss should be able to find success against Mississippi Valley and Rider, but its first big test against a Top 10 Memphis program is going to be a good early-season barometer with how the rest of the year could go.
When the Rebels return from Atlanta, they will face two tough opponents in Middle Tennessee and Dayton before concluding non-conference play with Samford.
