Davis return announced with bizarre press release
Kermit Davis will officially return, but the bizarre messaging did him no favors. Plus, a look at the start of SEC play and the Auburn Tigers
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. We’ve got a new podcast out with Collin Brister previewing the Ole Miss-Auburn series, discussing a lethargic midweek loss to Southeastern Louisiana and the importance of this team getting off to a fast start in conference play. Longtime friend Johnny Heat follows that with a March Madness preview, as well his and SkyBox’s wagering guide to the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. You can check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We’ve got some of that and more to discuss today.
On St. Patrick’s Day, we reflect on greatness
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which means it would be sinful not to look back on one of the greatest local TV news stories of our time. It came from NBC 15 News in Mobile on St. Paddy’s Day 2006.
I hope they get to the bottom of this. The amateur sketch was crafted with such great detail, it amazes me that the leprechaun is still able to hide amongst us. My money is on the gentleman who claims he will bring his own personal backhoe to uproot the tree and find the pot of gold to settle this once and for all.
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If you’re into sports betting, you need to use SkyBox. You’re wasting money if you don’t.
Kermit Davis return announced in utterly bizarre press release
Ole Miss officially announced on Wednesday that Kermit Davis will return for a fifth season as the Rebels’ basketball coach. I think we all figured this would be the case, whether you agreed with the decision or not. To me, that wasn’t the story yesterday. The story was how this was handled and how this was announced. I really don’t know any other way to dissect this than to post this rambling and bizarre press release and dissect it after. You need to read it to understand the full scope of its strangeness, trust me. Scroll and bear with me.
OXFORD, Miss. – As Ole Miss’ 2021-22 men’s basketball campaign comes to a close, the program’s leadership is already shifting its focus to next season and beyond. The Rebels finished the slate with a 13-19 record, marking just their third losing season in the last 16 years.
“Coach Davis and I have had productive discussions this week, and while our team faced some unforeseen circumstances, we are both disappointed by this season’s results,” said Keith Carter, Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics. “Kermit has enjoyed tremendous success throughout his career and understands what it takes to win at a high level. He has presented to me a plan to regain the momentum that took our program to the NCAA Tournament just a few years ago. Additionally, we are committed to providing him support and resources in order to make the changes necessary to compete for championships. We believe in Kermit’s vision for Ole Miss Basketball and look forward to seeing it translate to NCAA Tournament success.”
“Our players and staff are looking straight ahead with great enthusiasm to get Ole Miss Basketball back to NCAA Tournaments and our third postseason in five years,” said Rebel head coach Kermit Davis. “This past season was one of the most uniquely challenging years pertaining to injuries I have ever endured as a head coach. We have a great nucleus coming back with four of our top five scorers returning and getting Daeshun, Robert and Jarkel 100 percent healthy for the 2022-23 season. We will have a top-25 recruiting class with four high school players that will immediately impact our program, and we will attack the portal as aggressively as any team in America. I believe in our process but am not satisfied with our progress. And I assure you we will not be satisfied until we achieve what we have set out to do: win NCAA Tournament games.
“As a proud Mississippi native, I firmly believe there is no greater honor than wearing a jersey with Ole Miss on the front, and every day, I am so proud to coach these players.”
In his first season in 2018-19, Davis led the Rebels to their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2015 following one of the biggest turnaround seasons in the nation. Predicted to finish last in the SEC heading into his first year, Ole Miss exceeded expectations. The Rebels finished sixth in the conference before punching their NCAA ticket, while Davis collected SEC Coach of the Year honors along the way. He joined Rod Barnes in being the only Ole Miss coaches to lead the Rebels to the Big Dance in their first season guiding the program.
Davis’ squad narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament in 2020-21 and received an NIT bid. Despite being the final Power-5 team to start their season due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the program, the Rebels went on to lead the SEC in scoring defense (65.4 PPG), win 10 of their final 13 games and earn a No. 1 seed in the NIT. Ole Miss finished the season 3-0 against ranked teams, including two victories against top-10 squads, one of only four programs to go undefeated against ranked opponents throughout the year.
That winning streak against ranked teams extended into this past season, when the Rebels tied an overall program record with their fourth consecutive top-25 win after beating No. 18 Memphis. Ole Miss had an additional top-25 victory over No. 25 LSU, in addition to narrow defeats in hard-fought battles at No. 18 Tennessee (L, 66-60/OT), vs. No. 4 Auburn (L, 80-71) and at No. 6 Kentucky (L, 83-72). In total, the Rebels lost five games to NET top-50 teams by 10 or fewer points.
At 64 victories with the Rebels, Davis is one of only three coaches in Ole Miss history to rack up at least 60 wins over their first four seasons alongside Barnes and Andy Kennedy.
Davis has coached four all-conference players during his three seasons in Oxford, including a trio of First Team All-SEC guards. Devontae Shuler was the latest Rebel to finish his collegiate career with First Team All-SEC honors along with winning the Howell Trophy as the best men’s basketball player in the state of Mississippi in 2020-21. Prior to Shuler, Breein Tyree earned first team accolades in back-to-back seasons (2018-19, 2019-20). Tyree’s game blossomed in Davis’ system, ranking in the conference’s top-three in scoring as a junior (third, 17.9 PPG) and as a senior (second, 19.7 PPG). Current Sacramento King Terence Davis also found success under his new head coach as a senior (2018-19) before becoming the first Rebel in more than a decade to play in the NBA.
Davis has also taken Ole Miss to new heights in recruiting, signing the two highest ranked recruits in program history. Matthew Murrell broke the record as part of the 2020 class, and 2021 Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year Daeshun Ruffin stayed in his home state and became a Rebel. Ruffin also was the first McDonald’s All-American to sign with the Rebels out of high school. Both cracked the top 40 nationally when they signed to continue their careers at Ole Miss.
Hello again. Are you as confused as I am? Who approved this? How did no one in the room read this statement and say ‘hey, this is a terrible idea. Let’s cut some of this out.’ It’s baffling to me. I’ll just take this point-by-point.
The first two paragraphs are fine. Some fluff about believing in Davis and giving him the resources necessary to succeed followed by a canned quote from Keith Carter. Cool. The release should’ve ended right there. But it didn’t.
The Davis quote is honestly ridiculous. As we’ve discussed multiple times, Davis continues to beat the injury drum regarding this past season’s failures. He has uttered some version of ‘this has been the most uniquely challenging year in my 38 years in the business.’ Really? You’ve never been on a team that lost three players? He lost Robert Allen, a Samford transfer with a limited sample size on what he is offensively, but he definitely provides defense, rebounding and a leadership presence. He lost Daeshun Ruffin for a little more than half the year and Jarkell Joiner for slightly less than half the season. Ok, fine, that hurts. It matters. But that’s what caused you to lose nine of your last ten games? Ehh. Come on. The injuries didn’t decimate Ole Miss to the point of being non-competitive. They exposed a flawed roster that was comprised of three high school kids that couldn’t contribute. The injuries exposed a lack of depth. Ole Miss wasn’t suiting up managers to get through practices and playing walk-ons in games. They played guys that aren’t seen has high major players once the injuries hit. That’s bad evaluation. Look, is it fair to expect Ole Miss to succeed with two top scorers out? Of course not, but bottoming out the way they did is extreme. He is not helping himself by continuing to act like the fan base is dumb.
He talks about bringing four of the top five scorers back. Really? Doe he know for sure Matthew Murrell is back? That’s the epicenter of this core he speaks of, and Murrell will have options at better programs and more optimal situations. Why put that out there unless they know for sure. Maybe they do, but that seems like a reach. Also, if all of these guys come back, where is the room to attack the transfer portal ‘as aggressively as any team in America’ like he stated? Ole Miss signed four more high school kids (anyone seen this movie before?).
Let’s do some simple math here. There are 13 scholarships to be had. Ruffin, Murrell, Joiner, Brakefield and Allen makes five players. Add the four high school kids and that is nine. Ty Fagan still has eligibility. How do you revamp this roster with four scholarships? . Austin Crowley, Luis Rodriguez and Sammy Hunter are eligible to return, though all three seem likely to be processed out. Do you cut one or two of the high school kids you brought in? That seems like an odd look given the root of the issue this past year.
Now, to the money paragraph: “Ole Miss had an additional top-25 victory over No. 25 LSU, in addition to narrow defeats in hard-fought battles at No. 18 Tennessee (L, 66-60/OT), vs. No. 4 Auburn (L, 80-71) and at No. 6 Kentucky (L, 83-72). In total, the Rebels lost five games to NET top-50 teams by 10 or fewer points.”
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think this is one of the most bizarre and astounding nuggets I have ever read in a media release. A power five program is bragging about losing to NET top-50 teams? An 11-point conference loss and 9-point conference loss are cited as accolades to reinforce the idea of bringing an embattled coach back? This is the Southeastern Conference. What is going on here? ‘Do not worry, season ticket holders, we made most games competitive. Please buy seats and merchandise.’
I cannot believe that paragraph is real.
Now, to be fair, and I am purely speculating here, I am almost positive Keith Carter did not see this press release before it went out. Carter is a smart man and one of the shrewder decision makers Ole Miss has had in a position of power in some time. I have to believe that if this had come across his desk, he would’ve nixed the entire thing and mulled the idea of drug testing everyone involved. This was likely a young media relations specialist trying too hard to find the good in a bad year. But my god, no one in the communications department thought that sounded bad? Insane.
A rule of thumb for any Ole Miss athletics program: if you are tempted to use the phrase ‘new heights,’ don’t do it. Just don’t.
This is nitpicky, but the whole ‘Davis has coached four All-SEC selections’ thing sounds nice, until you look at who recruited them. Hello, Andy Kennedy. Davis deserves a tremendous amount of for the development of Breein Tyree, Devontae Shuler and Terence Davis. A TON of credit, but is that the time and place to mention it?
Anyway, this was all probably too harsh. But I was floored by this entire thing. I think Kermit Davis is a good basketball coach. I think there is a chance he turns this around. I understand the argument for giving him another year. But this didn’t have to unfold this way. Just put out a statement saying last year was unacceptable and you trust that Davis is the man to fix it. Boom. It’s over with. The focus is now on to a critical nine months for the program. This did not have to be complicated.
Ultimately, none of this will matter. Wins, losses and crowd sizes will determine Davis’s fate. But Ole Miss tripped over itself in the public relations department with how all of this unfolded, as it so often does — and, as it is in most cases, it was completely avoidable.
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Ole Miss heads to Auburn on heels of back-to-back losses
SEC play is finally here for college baseball. It’s one of the best times of the year. Ole Miss is in Auburn for a Thursday-Saturday series that begins tonight at 6 p.m. CT. The Rebels are on the heels of a lethargic 5-1 loss at Southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday. Some thoughts on Tuesday and then the weekend:
Offense absent in 5-1 loss to Lions
The Rebels lost back-to-back games for the first time all season after the Tuesday defeat. While Southeastern Louisiana historically has a pretty good baseball program, this is not a great Lions team. They did take a game at Arkansas in Fayetteville a few weeks ago, but SELA is 8-9 on the year.
The Rebels mustered just three hits. That’s three games in a row now in which the approach at the plate hasn’t been great from the offense. I am not sure if it means anything yet, but this weekend’s series should be pretty telling in that regard. I do think the lineup is hurting a bit without Kevin Graham and Calvin Harris available strictly from the standpoint of not having many left-handed bat options. It seems like it has been a combination of guys pressing a bit and some poor luck. The Rebels grounded into a pair of costly double plays and were a swing or two away from plating six runs in this game. I’d like to see how this weekend goes against a pair of good SEC right-handers.
The defense is the real concern
Ole Miss made three errors. Two of them came at important moments in the game. The Rebels have now made 20 errors in 15 games on the season. By comparison, their opponents have committed 15 — and have any of their opponents struck you as defensive juggernauts? This is a problem that must be rectified quickly or it’s going to cost this team dearly at some point. We are entering the part of the season in which the margin for error is slim. A single game or inning can be the difference in where you play your postseason baseball. If you think that sounds dramatic, Ole Miss was two managerial blunders away — the 6th inning in the Sunday game at Mississippi State and pitching to Will Frizzell in the 7th inning of the Sunday game at A&M — from being a national seed and playing a Super Regional in Oxford instead of Tucson, Arizona. Ever wonder what would’ve happened had the Rebels not run into the buzz saw that was the Wildcats offense? I rest my case.
Mike Bianco has had teams in the past where it made sense why they weren’t good defensively due to lineup finagling for offensive purposes among other things. This isn’t the case this time. This team shouldn’t bad defensively at all. In fact, with Justin Bench in centerfield, the Rebels should be a good defensive team. Perhaps they will be eventually, but they aren’t right now and it is an alarming sign.
Washburn goes five innings
I thought Jack Washburn was pretty solid in this outing. He gave up two runs, one earned, on four hits with five strikeouts and three walks in five innings. Washburn pitched his way out of trouble. He made a decent pitch (I think, the SELA broadcast apparently did not believe in replays) on the solo shot he gave up in the second inning and immediately rebounded after it.
Washburn still misses up in the strike zone far too often. I think that will be exploited more often when he faces better offenses if he doesn’t fix it, but overall, it was a pretty good outing. With Ole Miss keeping its rotation the same this weekend (John Gaddis, Derek Diamond, TBA), I still think this coaching staff is holding out hope that Washburn is an option as a weekend starter. The TBA is the telling sign to me. If Bianco was completely comfortable with Jack Dougherty as the third starter, and the evidence suggest the opposite to this point, he would’ve just listed Dougherty as the third guy instead of going TBA. Now, it is also likely Bianco wants to see how this weekend plays out in the first two games before deciding on a Sunday starter. For example, let’s say Ole Miss wins on Thursday, burns Brandon Johnson and then holds a 5-4 lead in the seventh on Friday. Bianco could wisely turn to Dougherty (his best available arm) in pursuit of ensuring a series win at a place the Rebels have not won a series at since 2009, as opposed to pitching someone else just to save Dougherty for game three. Road series wins in this league are hard to come by, no matter the opponent.
With all of that said, I just have a feeling Washburn gets a crack at being a weekend starter at some point this season.
Auburn scout
This is a huge series for the Rebels. I realize I am stating the obvious, but this team is facing a bit of adversity heading into the opening weekend of the SEC season. They are without Harris and Graham. The offense has scuffled just a tad. Kemp Alderman tweaked something on Tuesday. I have no idea what the severity of it is and have no update on his availability, but it was bad enough to come out of Tuesday’s game. The SEC schedule broke in Ole Miss’s favor in the sense that it has a pretty tame start with Auburn, Tennessee at home, a road trip to Kentucky and a home series with Alabama before they face the teeth of the SEC West. If the Rebels drop this series, it’s not the end of the world, but now all of a sudden they are hosting a good Tennessee club and are a series loss away from being in a bit of a hole in a manageable part of the schedule. If Ole Miss plays well, it will win this series.
Auburn on the mound
The Tigers went with the rare game two TBA, with Mason Barnett and Trace Bright sandwiched around it. Ole Miss faced both of these right-handers last year and beat both of them.
Barnett is a mid-90s ight hander with a decent curveball and changeup. Barnett doesn’t walk a ton of guys but is prone to making mistakes over the plate. He will be about as run of the mill as possible when it comes to weekend arms the Rebels will face this year.
Bright is 88-90 with the fastball with a sharp breaking ball. He has been Auburn’s most consistent starter this year, albeit against questionable competition.
Auburn is a club that hasn’t swung it exceptionally well this year, but has pitched the hell out of it up until last weekend when it lost a head-scratching series to Middle Tennessee State. As well as this team has gotten by on the mound, head coach Butch Thompson speaks like a guy that doesn’t have a firm handle on bullpen roles yet. The Tigers have used a lot of pitchers and still seem to be figuring it out a bit in that regard despite having pretty good overall success on the mound.
One thing to watch for, and the reason Auburn is TBA in game two is the health of Joseph Gonzalez. He left last weekend’s start with a blister. As most of you likely understand — who the hell knows with a blister when it comes to pitchers. That is something to watch for in game two because it could take a valuable arm out of the bullpen.
Offensively, Auburn strikes out a ton and is a middle of the pack offense by pretty much every statistical measure.
Ole Miss should win this series if it plays well.
On the horizon
Mailbag Friday podcast with NCAA Tournament reaction, baseball thoughts and more
Spring football preview in the newsletter and podcast
Sunday baseball pod with Collin Brister.
That is all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by smashing the subscribe button below. It is free.