Let's be candid about Ole Miss Basketball
Some thoughts on the end of a dreadful hoops season, Ole Miss tops Oral Roberts and Sam Williams shined at the combine
Hope everyone had a great week. We have a new podcast out with former Andy Kennedy staffer Bracken Ray on the end of the Ole Miss Basketball season, Kermit Davis’ future, roster attrition and much more. My old radio pal Michael Borkey stopped by after to discuss a variety of topics. You can check that out here or anywhere you get your podcasts.
We’ve got much of the same and more to discuss today.
Ole Miss loses to Mizzou to close out season
Ole Miss’s dreadful 2021-22 basketball season mercifully came to an end on Wednesday via a 72-60 loss to Missouri at the SEC Tournament in Tampa. The program now enters an offseason littered with questions and challenges. Assuming that athletics director Keith Carter elects give Kermit Davis one more year to fix things, Davis will have to re-evaluate virtually every aspect of the program. This season was unacceptable. The Rebels were 13-20 (4-15). They were 1-11 in Quad 1 games, 5-2 in Quad 2 games and somehow managed to go 2-6 in Quad 3 games. Missouri is going to fire its coach. The Tigers won 12 games this year. Three of those wins were against the mighty Rebels.
The product was unwatchable. Ole Miss ranked 13th out of 14 teams in the SEC in points per game. It was a bottom-three free throw shooting team and ranked 9th in overall field goal percentage. The Rebels were the third worst rebounding team in the league. After the game ended, Kermit Davis was already on to next season.
“It's a big boy league,” Davis said. “We're going to work day and night to get this thing flipped next year, and they've given us every resource to be successful at Ole Miss, so it's right on us. We're going to go out and put together a roster that the Ole Miss fans can be proud of, and we're going to be right here next year, hopefully playing for seeding in the NCAA tournament and having a great chance to win at national.”
Davis is correct. The SEC is a big boy league now. Gone are the days of it being a football conference that did not invest as much in basketball. The SEC was the best league in the sport this year and will only be better next season. That makes the challenge that lies ahead for Davis and his staff even more daunting. When looking back on what went wrong this season, Davis pointed out the injuries on multiple occasions, citing that he feels this roster was an NCAA Tournament team if fully healthy. He did the same on Wednesday night.
You know, I think this is, I don't know, 38 or 39 years in college basketball, and it's probably the most uniquely challenged with some of the guys that we've lost,” Davis said. “We lost the highest rated player that's ever played here, Daeshun Ruffin. He was just finding his way and tore his ACL. We lost our toughest defender, Robert Allen, at the Memphis game. We beat Memphis, and obviously Jarkel, he is still not 100%. He had a back procedure.”
Injuries played a part in the team bottoming out this year, but they weren’t the reason this group didn’t come close to sniffing the NCAA Tournament. At no point this season did Ole Miss look like an NCAA Tournament team, injuries be damned. Let’s be honest about who Ole Miss was and who it lost to injury. Robert Allen tore his ACL in the season’s first week. Allen is a Samford transfer that provides a defense and rebounding presence and is a leader on this team. He’s a team captain. But if a roster’s NCAA Tournament fate hinges on having a low-major transfer (we still really don’t know what Allen offers offensively) available, you’re probably not an NCAA Tournament team. Ole Miss lost Ruffin for over a month after he suffered a wrist injury in the season opener. Ruffin returned on December 15. At the beginning of January, Ole Miss then lost Jarkel Joiner for a month with a back injury. The game before Joiner returned, Ruffin tore his ACL in a win at LSU and was lost for the year.
So, in essence, Ole Miss lost Allen for the year, a little more than half a season of Ruffin and little less than half a season of Joiner. That is significant. Both of those guards were supposed to shoulder the bulk of the scoring load, along with (the team’s best player) Matthew Murrell. But that collective injury report is not an all-encompassing excuse for the way this season bottomed out. It may be a good enough excuse to give Davis one more year, but it is not the sole reason this team sucked. Davis spoke like the coach of a team that had to suit up managers and statisticians to get through practices. That didn’t happen. Ole Miss lost a couple key pieces, but it wasn’t decimated by injuries. Let’s call a spade a spade here: Ole Miss wasn’t an NCAA Tournament-caliber team when healthy. The problem lies elsewhere.
It’s not remotely rational to expect Ole Miss to make the NCAA Tournament every year, or even every other year. It’s a bottom three job in an absolute bear of a conference. But it’s completely rational to expect more than this. As a fan, you should expect to be more competitive than Ole Miss was this year. You should wonder why this coaching staff keeps trying to jam a square peg into a round hole when it comes to building a roster. You should wonder why the Rebels have yet to bring in a true shot-creating, bucket-getting guard since Breein Tyree (an Andy Kennedy recruit) departed the program. You should wonder why the last two teams have lacked an offensive identity, and have been putrid in half-court offense — particularly in the game’s waning minutes, also known as crunch time. A large part of the problem is roster construction and missed evaluations. At Middle Tennessee State, Davis built a lot of his teams inside-out, playing through the frontcourt with long, athletic forwards who punish teams inside. That doesn’t work in the Southeastern Conference. You cannot win in this league without dynamic guard play. Look at Florida this year as an example: the Gators had one of the best frontcourts in the conference led by Colin Castleton. The Gators also had pedestrian guard play. They are headed to the NIT and Mike White’ seat is white hot.
The Rebels don’t have the type of guard play necessary to win at a high level, or at least not enough of it.
“Well, this is a tough place to recruit to and I don’t know how you expect them to get elite-level guards,” you might rebut.
That hasn’t been the issue either. Davis and this staff signed top-50 guards in (McDonald’s All-American) Daeshun Ruffin and Matthew Murrell. They brought in a top-50 guy out of the portal in Jaemyn Brakefield. The problem is how the rest of the roster shaped out. Ole Miss brought in three high school kids in its last recruiting class who many within the industry did not think were high-major basketball players. None of them contributed this year, outside of James White in spots and that was due to the injuries — but isn’t that the point? The injuries Ole Miss suffered this year didn’t torpedo it season, they exposed a flawed roster that lacked depth. Couple that with the Rebels being in the mix for Kentucky’s TyTy Washington, and opting to go with all three high school guys instead, and you have a major talent evaluation and roster building issue.
That’s what is going to have to change in this upcoming offseason that ultimately determine Davis’s fate and alter future of this program. Davis is going to have to prove he is capable of doing something he hasn’t yet done at Ole Miss: lean on the portal to bring in scorers and shooters. Again, it’s not a complete recruiting fail. This staff has landed pieces, but it’s how they’ve built around those pieces that has been the problem. The same is true heading into next year, but what makes this climb even steeper is that this staff is also going to have to recruit the pieces on the roster to stay. Matthew Murrell emerged into an All-SEC caliber player over the last two months of the season. He will have multiple suitors, blue blood-level suitors, trying to pluck him from this roster. They’ll sell him on being a major contributor to a team set to win championships when his other option is sticking with a rapidly sinking ship. It’s not a hard sell. Davis and this staff simply must keep Murrell and Ruffin. That’s priority number one. If those two leave, the rest of this is moot.
Priority number two is building a roster in a different fashion than Davis is accustomed to — one that is equipped to win in a highly-competitive SEC. His job status depends upon it.
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Ole Miss tops Oral Roberts in game one
Ole Miss beat Oral Roberts 16-2 in game one of its final weekend series before conference play begins. First pitch was moved up five hours to 1:30 p.m. due to the threat of inclement weather, which also prevented me from getting out a series preview to all of you, but I am gonna say I doubt that was taken into consideration when deciding to move the game.
A couple quick thoughts from game one
John Gaddis made his debut on Fridays after Bianco announced that he planned to shake up the rotation. Gaddis allowed two earned runs on seven hits in five innings. He labored a bit and threw 96 pitches in an outing that made him look human for the first time in an Ole Miss uniform. It looked like to me that he was struggling to find his fastball command early in counts and that threw him off a bit. He walked three hitters after going 10 innings without walking anyone over three appearances. I don’t make a ton from it. Gaddis didn’t have his best stuff. It happens. On the contrary, I thought he did what Derek Diamond didn’t do last week: he battled and mitigated damage. Oral Roberts loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth inning in what was 3-1 game at the time. Gaddis induced two strikeouts and a lazy fly ball, with a walk in-between, to escape with just one run crossing the plate. He worked around a pair of singles in the third and stranded a man in the fifth. I thought that was a good sign. I am not remotely worried about Gaddis.
I did write earlier in the week about messing up a good thing on Saturdays, and how Doug Nikhazy and Christian Trent thrived in that role, but looked a little more human when they were moved to Fridays. I still wonder if the same will happen to Gaddis. Maybe it doesn’t, but I still believe Ole Miss is best suited with him on Saturdays.
This is Tim. Tim hits tanks. Would recommend being careful when pitching to Tim. @TimElko | #HottyToddyBianco announced that Jack Dougherty will start on Sunday. I made the argument for this in the Tuesday newsletter: Dougherty-Gaddis-Diamond as Ole Miss’s best rotation. To me, this feels like an intermediate step to getting to that. Maybe I am wrong, but having arguably the best arm on your pitching staff pitching on Sundays doesn’t seem like a great strategy. Dougherty has 12 strikeouts, zero walks over 12 inning this year and has looked like he would prefer to watch his opponents dig a grave and lie in it in the process. He’s got a little of that ‘f**k you’ attitude I think you need on Fridays. I think what Diamond offers is more than adequate on Sunday and I think Gaddis has proven he’s a perfect Saturday fit. So, the question becomes: does Ole Miss gravitate to this and how long does it take them? Or, do they stick with it like this and be much better on the mound than anyone in the country on Sundays.
The Ole Miss offense destroyed Oral Roberts. Since Kevin Graham left the lineup, Ole Miss has scored 41 runs in 24 innings. Have I mentioned how ridiculous the offense could end up being? The Rebels will be fine until Graham returns. The kid Oral Roberts started was a real arm. He was at 90 with the fastball and had decent secondary stuff. He’s the best arm in that league. Ole Miss made him crave a cigarette when the order turned over the second time thru.
I will have much more on this on Monday. Tune into the Sunday pod, too, for a series reaction.
Buckley shoots 72 in opening round of The Players
I’ve been slacking the last week or two on the Magnolia State golf updates. I promise I will get back to that next week. The Korn Ferry Tour is at the end of a month-long break and returns to action next week. The PGA Tour hit the Florida swing, which featured a couple of invitational tournaments that are harder for rookies (like the trio of Mississippians) to get into.
This week, the lone Mississippian in the field is Tupelo native and Mizzou alum Hayden Buckley. He shot an even par 72 yesterday before inclement weather set in. He currently sits T-80. Buckley was 3-under at one point in the round and sat in a very early T-8, but leaked some oil in the closing holes. There has been more weather delays today. Buckley’s technically supposed tee off in his second round at 5:21, but I highly-doubt he gets much of that in today. He will likely play 36 holes on Saturday.
The fact that Buckley is in the biggest tournament in the sport outside of the majors is pretty remarkable. Less than 13 months ago, he had partial status on the Korn Ferry Tour and stood in the parking lot at 5:30 a.m. at the LECOM SunCoast Classic in Tampa. Buckley was the third alternate and was just hoping three people would drop out to allow him to get into the field. He got in, won the whole thing, went on to earn his PGA Tour Card and has shined in his rookie year. Buckley had a T-4, T-8 and T-12 finish in his first seven events. He’s earned over $700,000 for his efforts. Two years ago, he finished in the top 5 in the points standings on the Canadian Tour in an effort to earn Korn Ferry status. I recently asked him if the financial security of succeeding on the PGA Tour ha sunk in yet. He basically answered “Yes, two years ago I was in Canada, earned Korn Ferry status and was ecstatic that I didn’t lose money.” It’s crazy how quickly things have changed for the former walk-on at Mizzou that neither in-state school wanted. Here’s to hoping he gets hot and wins the whole thing this week.
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Williams shined at The Combine
I missed this last week, but to the shock of no one, Sam Williams proved what a physical freak of nature he is at the NFL Combine, further raising his draft stock.
Williams has always had talent. What you saw last year was a guy recognize that talent, commit to becoming a more complete football player and ascending to stardom. Williams is an incredible story. In 2019, I sat down with him for a longform story on some of the challenges he overcame growing up in Montgomery. He lost a brother and a niece to gun violence and moved in with a friend’s family.
At the risk of this becoming a self-promotion fest here, when I was reporting the story I wrote a couple of weeks ago on Trimiesha Joyner’s (the wife of defensive line coach Randall Joyner) nearly fatal battle with a brain aneurysm, I asked some folks about what Joyner is like as a coach.
It led me back to a video of a press conference Williams last October. Skip to the 30-second mark and then to the 2:30 mark to listen to what he said about Joyner.
Williams isn’t a guy that liberally gushes about a player or coach. He’s pretty reserved in that regard, which only validates how genuine is praise of Joyner was. Joyner is a rising star in this industry and Williams was a beneficiary of that. Of course, Williams deserves the bulk of the credit for maturing and realizing his potential. He became a father a year ago, which I think contributed to a lot of it. Williams is a good guy. He’s easy to root for and I am happy to see him succeed.
On the Horizon:
Sunday baseball discussion podcast that we are going to turn into a makeshift Mailbag Friday session too. Send in your questions if you have them.
Week of newsletters on baseball, March Madness and spring football.
More spring football content on the podcast with former recruiting staffer Weldon Rotenberg.
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