More Reasons
I have now watched two more Ole Miss games, totaling up to four on the season, and lemme tell you, this team is fun to watch. Their most recent showing against Iowa State was impressive (low turnover numbers, high volume passing, scrappy defense) gave me confidence that they could make a run to the championship.
Sorry if I’m late to the party, Rebel fans, but if you told me that you had a forward off the bench named Jaemyn that would be “Jaemyn” basketballs through the hoop, I would’ve filled all my brackets differently. Oh, he’s also 4-for-7 from three?
Speaking of threes, Ole Miss has been shooting far better from deep than I had expected: 40% in the first round and 57.9% in the second. Those numbers say “Never too far behind for a comeback.”
The Rebels have to get past two goliaths in college basketball (Michigan State and Auburn) to punch a ticket to San Antonio. I can’t tell what will be harder, potentially playing those two teams within days of each other or spending a week in San Antonio.
Original Reasons
I’m not going to lie, I have watched about two Ole Miss games. Both times they lost to Auburn. If they avoid facing Auburn in the tournament, look out.
There are several stats I like to watch out for when predicting how far a mid-seeded team can go, one of them being assist-to-turnover ratio. That ratio sits at 1.60 for the Rebels, good for 12th best in the nation. Well damn, Auburn is fourth.
The old “SEC has the toughest competition” cliche is slowly making it’s way into the basketball world. With it come two schools of thought: a team is a victim and should be readily rewarded for giving it their all against objectively better teams (in other words, “experience”), or a team is a contributor. The Rebels find themselves at a near-perfect medium with a Quad 1 record of 8-10 and an in-conference record of 10-8. If I had to choose, however, I believe Ole Miss is a contributor. Whichever line of thinking you fall into, Auburn is in the other with a fast pass.
Chris Beard has a beard. Where are your pearls, Bruce?
Theo Franz
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