Andy Kennedy (basketball Coach) - Coaching Career - Ole Miss

Ole Miss

During his six seasons at the helm, Kennedy has led Ole Miss to five 20-win campaigns and five postseason berths, with seven postseason victories in those appearances. All those postseason berths have, however, been in the NIT, and he has so far in his career not managed to earn his team a NCAA Tournament bid.

Some of the many feats Kennedy has achieved in his short time at Ole Miss: • With 105 Wins, has the Most Victories by an Ole Miss Coach in a 5 year period • 1st Coach in School History to record Four 20+ Win Seasons (Ole Miss had seven total 20+ Win Seasons in its Program’s history prior to Kennedy) • Reached 100 Wins Faster than Any Coach in the Program’s History (in 158 Games) • The 1st Coach since R.L. Sullivan (1920-25) to lead Ole Miss to 5 Straight Winning Seasons • Has the Highest Winning Percentage (105-64 = .621) of any Coach through 5yrs • Recorded The Most SEC Regular Season Wins (38) by a Coach in his 1st 5yrs • Only 2nd Coach to lead the Program to 4 Postseason Appearances in 5 Seasons

The Kennedy-led Rebels have also claimed a pair of SEC Western Division Titles (2007, 2010) and made the first two NIT Final Four appearances in school history (2008, 2010).

Over the last five years, the Rebels have gone 105-64, which marks the most victories by an Ole Miss coach in a five-year span. Kennedy reached the 100-win mark faster than any coach in school history, and he is the first to ever lead Ole Miss to four 20-win campaigns. In fact, he's just the seventh coach in SEC history to guide his teams to 20+ wins in four of his first five seasons. He has also guided Ole Miss to more postseason wins (seven) than any coach in school history.

In SEC play, the Rebels are 38-42 during that span, which is sixth-best in the league behind Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. Compare those numbers to the previous five seasons (75-74 overall, 26-54 SEC), and it's easy to see what big strides the program has made.

Along with wins and postseason appearances, Kennedy has brought a renewed passion for Ole Miss hoops founded on an exciting brand of full-court, fast-paced action and lots of twine being tickled. Since Kennedy arrived, the Rebels have set season records in almost every offensive statistical category and several defensive ones, as well. And Tad Smith Coliseum has seen both season and single-game attendance records shattered.

The Rebels' pursuit of championships is largely based on a keen eye for talent and the tireless recruiting efforts of Kennedy and his staff. Each year, they have added to the team's talent level and managed to reel in some of the most highly rated prep players in school history. The staff has brought in 11 players who were ranked among the nation's top 100 high school prospects, including 2010 NBA draft selection Terrico White. Add diamond-in-the-rough Chris Warren to that mix, and it's quite an impressive list.

Kennedy wasted no time putting Ole Miss back on the map when he arrived. In his debut season of 2006-07, he guided an unheralded Rebel squad to 21 wins, a Southeastern Conference Western Division title and a second-round appearance in the National Invitation Tournament en route to 2007 SEC Coach of the Year honors.

After breaking the string of four losing seasons, the internal expectations for Kennedy's team were rising, despite the fact that most media experts again picked the Rebels to dwell in the division cellar in 2007-08.

Kennedy would be counting on three freshmen and a pair of inexperienced sophomores to take over a backcourt that lost all three senior starters from the year before.

After Ole Miss broke out of the gates with a blazing 13-0 start and a No. 15 national ranking, folks around the country started to take notice. In the end, Kennedy took his second Rebel squad to 24 wins, the second-most in school history, and the program's first-ever trip to the NIT Final Four at New York's Madison Square Garden.

The Rebels' 45 victories and back-to-back 20-win campaigns were both program firsts for a head coach in his first two seasons. In fact, Kennedy was just the fourth coach in SEC history with 45 or more wins in his first two years, a list which includes Tubby Smith (63 wins at Kentucky, 45 at Georgia), Eddie Sutton (50 at UK) and Bruce Pearl (46 at Tennessee).

Injuries riddled the Ole Miss lineup in 2008-09, but the Rebels still managed to register a winning 16-15 record and a 7-9 mark in SEC play.

Despite the fact that it was the first time in four seasons as a head coach that Kennedy had not led his team to 20 wins or postseason play, the Louisville, Miss., native was named a finalist for the Clair Bee National Coach of the Year award and tabbed by CollegeInsider.com as the SEC Coach of the Year. Some think it was the best coaching job yet by the rising star, whose résumé was already stock-piled with accolades.

The short-handed Rebels upended nationally ranked Kentucky and SEC East champ Tennessee at home and would-be tourney champ Mississippi State on the road, while Terrico White flourished as the league's freshman of the year after Kennedy moved him to the starting point guard role.

In 2009-10, the Rebels were again among the league's elite squads as they claimed their second division title under Kennedy. They matched the 2007-08 team with a 24-11 record. Ranked in the polls for nine weeks, Ole Miss just missed out on an NCAA Tournament berth before storming through the first three rounds of the NIT with wins over Troy, Memphis and Texas Tech en route to an NIT Final Four trip to New York for the second time in three years.

Led by sensational senior scorers Chris Warren and Zach Graham, last year's Rebels again reached the 20-win plateau and a postseason berth. Warren garnered first-team All-SEC distinction, ranking second in the league with 19.1 points per game and leading the NCAA in free-throw shooting with an Ole Miss and SEC record percentage of 92.8. He led the way for an Ole Miss team that finished 20-14 and made the first round of the NIT.

The highlight of the 2010-11 season may have occurred in a Feb. 1 meeting with No. 10-ranked Kentucky in Oxford, which saw Warren hit a 25-foot 3-pointer with two seconds remaining to upend the Wildcats 71-69. The Tad Pad crowd was in a frenzy after the dunk-filled, down-to-the-wire affair that marked Ole Miss' first win over a top-10 foe since 2002.