The Flagship: Murphy Holloway not the least bit surprised by Ole Miss’ first 8-0 start since 2007
Jaylen Murray received nowhere near the transfer-portal hype of his fellow Ole Miss off-season signees.
And yet no Rebel has had a more consequential impact on the program’s first 8-0 start since 2007. Ole Miss defeated Mount St. Mary’s Tuesday night. Murray had a career-high 26 points.
“He hasn’t surprised me, because I’m with him daily,” all-time Ole Miss basketball great Murphy Holloway said. Holloway is now serving as graduate assistant under first year Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard.
He was appearing on the Spirit’s ‘Flagship’ podcast.
“But I can see from the outside looking in, it’s probably like, ‘Where did this kid come from?’” Holloway said. ”We’re hyped about Brandon Murray and Moussa Cisse and Al Flanigan. JuJu was kind of an afterthought. Now he’s far from an afterthought. I’m not surprised.”
Murray is a transfer point guard from Saint Peter’s.
Richmond and Seton Hall were his only other offers. He committed to Beard and the Rebels on the last day of May.
He’s scored at least 20 points in back-to-back games. Murray made six free throws in the final minute and half against Mount St. Mary’s to secure the win, and he added six assists to just one turnover.
Ole Miss entered the game ranked No. 21 in the NCAA in assist-to-turnover ratio. Murray has produced 19 assists and two turnovers over his last three, all Rebel wins. Ole Miss took down NC State and Memphis last week. The Wolfpack was an NCAA Tournament team last season.
“Rebounding with my boy Ju,” Holloway said, when asked of areas of improvement for Murray. “We watch film and I tell him, ‘You’ve got to go rebound. You’ve got to hit and go rebound.’”
Holloway knows a thing or two about rebounding.
He finished his Rebel career as the school record-holder in the category (1,093). He was the only player in SEC history to post 1,400 points, 1,000 rebounds and 190 steals.
Holloway — who, as a professional, played for 13 different teams across several different countries from 2013 to 2022 — had 39 career double-doubles, the second-most all-time at Ole Miss.
“That’s an area of improvement for us — rebounding as a team and not taking plays off,” Holloway said. “We preach on it, we work on it (and) we don’t take plays off.
“We don’t care if you had 30 points and 20 rebounds, we’re going to pick on it in film. ‘Hey, you could have had 21 rebounds. You could have had 34 points.’ We watch film every day, so you’re going to get better every day.”
Holloway also touched on the clearance of fellow first-year transfer Moussa Cisse, team chemistry (12 of Ole Miss’ 16 players are new) and much, much more in the full interview below.
