The Mississippi Rebels men's basketball represents the University of Mississippi in intercollegiate men's basketball. They have participated in the National Invitation Tournament in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1989, 2000, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012. In 2008 and 2010, they made it to the National Invitation Tournament Semifinals at Madison Square Garden. The Rebels have won the SEC Western Division in 1997, 1998, 2001, 2007, and 2010. From 1999-2006, Rod Barnes coached the Rebels basketball team, and compiled a record of 141-109 during his tenure.
In 2007, Ole Miss hired Andy Kennedy, and the Rebs tied for first place in the SEC West during the 2006–2007 season. Led by the senior trio of Clarence Sanders, Bam Doyne, and Todd Abernethy, the Ole Miss men finished the year with a 21-13 record, including a 16-1 record at home inside Tad Smith Coliseum. They advanced to the second round of the National Invitation Tournament, before falling at Clemson University. In his debut season with the Rebels, Kennedy was named the 2007 SEC Coach of the Year by the Associated Press after guiding Ole Miss, a preseason last-place pick in the SEC West, to its first division title and most wins since 2001.
In the 2012-2013 season Ole Miss won just their second SEC Tournament title ever, and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002. Ole Miss also set a team record for most SEC wins in a season.
Famous quotes containing the words ole, rebels and/or basketball:
“My ole man died—hunh—
Cussin’ me;
Ole lady rocks, bebby,
Huh misery.”
—Sterling Allen Brown (b. 1901)
“Now boys, remember you are the Twenty-third, and give them hell. In these woods the Rebels don’t know but we are ten thousand; and if we fight, and when we charge yell, we are as good as ten thousand, by God.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)