Rebel Reset: Davis gets WNBA Draft invite; Ole Miss baseball helping ‘Stand Up To Cancer’
Ole Miss baseball announced Tuesday it will host a Stand Up To Cancer® (SU2C) game April 25 against Alabama.
The Rebels will also hold a Placard Moment™ between the third and fourth innings, when they’ll invite fans in attendance at Swayze Field to stand in a moment of silence for all of those impacted by cancer. The goal is to raise awareness on the impact of the disease and need for further research.
Placards will also be placed in each seat for fans to fill out when they arrive. Extra placards can also be picked up at the left field and home plate entrances. Fans unable to make it for the game can still fill out a digital placard to share on social media using the SU2C placard generator at StandUpToCancer.org.
First pitch Thursday night is set for 6:30 p.m on ESPNU.
RELATED: Ole Miss is experiencing déjà vu in the middle of another SEC slide
Ole Miss (18-15, 3-9 SEC) won its first-ever national championship just two summers ago.
However, the Rebels, after a hot streak, have fallen back into the all-too-familiar pattern of losing of their last two-plus seasons. They’ve dropped seven straight games, including six against conference opponents.
They were swept at No. 1 Arkansas last weekend.
“I understand the frustration of the fans (and) the players,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said after Saturday’s loss. “We played really good teams. You’ve got to outplay them. We didn’t.
“There’s no moral victories. All the losses count the same, all the wins count the same. But as a coach, you’ve got to get better. We were better this weekend. The biggest thing is we’ve got to continue to believe in one another.”
The Rebels were supposed to face off against Murray State in the midweek.
The game was postponed to a later, still-to-be-determined date and time due to inclement weather. Ole Miss next hosts in-state rival Mississippi State for a three-game set starting Friday, April 12. A series win for the Bulldogs this weekend would be their 10th in a row against the Rebels.
“This is when it becomes hard,” Bianco said. “When you don’t have success. But this is a good group, and I think they care about one another. They’re going to keep competing.”
DAVIS EARNS WNBA DRAFT INVITE
In other Ole Miss athletics news, women’s basketball senior guard Marquesha Davis has been invited to the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Davis was named first-team All-SEC after a career-best season in 2023-24. She’s looking to become just the seventh Rebel drafted in school history. The event is being held Monday at the Brooklyn (NY) Academy of Music at 6:30 p.m. CT.
Davis spent two of her five overall college seasons at Ole Miss. She transferred in from Arkansas. Davis led the Rebels in scoring this season (14.6) and emerged as the 36th Rebel ever to eclipse 1,000 career points.
She averaged 15.7 points in SEC play. Ole Miss set a new program record with its 12 SEC wins. The Rebels reached 20 wins or more for the third consecutive season and held a school-record 11 opponents under 50 points.
“The conversation with Que was, ‘When you leave Ole Miss, you’re gonna leave with a bang,’” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said earlier this year of Davis. “I said, ‘Go out with a bang.’
“Well, Marquesha’s a first-round draft pick, in my opinion.”
