Last year looked like the beginning of a dynasty. In his second season as head coach, Chris Beard led the Rebels to a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2001, where they narrowly lost to No. 2 seed Michigan State.
Then came this season.
The Rebels fell to 11-16 (3-11 SEC) with their 94-75 clobbering at the hands of No. 12 Florida on Saturday, Feb. 21. As of Feb. 25, they are third-to-last in the SEC and, barring a miraculous championship run in the SEC Tournament, will fail to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
What went wrong?
Frankly, the Rebels lack athleticism and flash.
Consider guard Matthew Murrell, a key contributor on the Sweet 16 team. A 6-foot-4-inch combo guard, he was No. 39 on ESPN’s Top 100 list for the class of 2020. He played for Ole Miss for five seasons and leads the program in games and minutes played.
During his time in Oxford, he was primarily known as a sharpshooter (No. 4 in program history in 3-pointers made) and a tenacious defender (tied for No. 4 in program history in career steals). In the NBA, this is referred to as a “3-and-D” player.
He was more likely to pull up for a contested jump shot than make a physical drive toward the basket. Yet, during his Pro Day in 2023, he slammed home a between-the-legs dunk.
A sharpshooter — a 3-and-D guy — on last year’s team was still capable of a between-the-legs dunk.
Obviously, this is an unfairly specific metric for athleticism. Some of the best basketball players in the world do not have the vertical jump or body coordination to accomplish this, yet they still possess other, more practical skill sets.
Murrell also did this on an empty court, without any defenders present. He currently plays for the Utah Jazz’s G League affiliate, so he is by no means an ordinary player.
But consider the rest of the Sweet 16 roster. Guard Sean Pedulla broke games open with his three-level scoring. He had 29 points against No. 1 Auburn last year and was the go-to option in crunch time, hence his dagger 3-pointers against Arkansas in the SEC Tournament and No. 11 seed North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. He was recently signed to the Los Angeles Clippers on a two-way contract.
Guard Jaylen “Juju” Murray’s flashy handles, no-look passes and step-back 3-pointers embodied the streetball-esque play style of a New York City point guard. Guard/forward Dre Davis was most dangerous in the low post and short corner; he had the physicality to get to the rim against big defenders, yet the finesse to drop in shots close to the basket.
Forward Malik Dia had surprising agility, mobility and handles for a 6-foot-9-inch player. Forward Jaemyn Brakefield, though he was not fast, carried a Luka Dončić-type mastery of fundamentals that made him a menace to any isolated defender.
These six all had one thing in common — an extra gear. Each one did not have to do everything themselves, yet all possessed the ability to take over the game.
That extra gear is exactly what this year’s roster lacks.
Guard Ilias Kamardine is not fast enough to beat his defender off the dribble and put defenses on their heels, which would create driving lanes and open looks for teammates. Guard AJ Storr is a knockdown shooter at all levels, but he lives and dies by the fade-away, the turnaround jumper and the contested pull-up; like Kamardine, he lacks the burst that made last season’s backcourt so dangerous.
Dia has shown flashes, but without Murray, Murrell and Pedulla on the perimeter, opposing defenses are more concentrated around the paint. Besides, Dia’s skillset is more suited toward wing play than it is the bruising, pounding post play of a true power forward or center — something this team sorely lacks.
Guard Patton Pinkins occasionally fills the scoring column thanks to his solid 3-point shooting, but he struggles to create shots on his own.
Besides these four, the Rebels utterly lack scoring options.
The KenPom rankings tell a dismal tale. These rankings were developed by Ken Pomeroy, a sorcerer of college basketball prediction, and have long been regarded as the holy grail of college basketball analysis. KenPom rankings “breakdown teams on a possession-by-possession basis, analyzing the offensive and defensive performance per 100 possessions,” per Nate Cunningham at Sports Illustrated.
Last season, the Rebels ranked No. 22 on offense and No. 23 on defense nationally per KenPom. This season, they were ranked No. 92 on offense — the worst under Beard at Ole Miss — and No. 74 on defense.
Hindsight is 20/20, but the lack of offensive volume should not have come as a surprise. Other than guard Kezza Giffa, who averaged 14.6 points per game at High Point last season (he averages 6.6 points per game this season, as of February. 24), none of the incoming transfers averaged double figures in 2024-25.
Since it was unclear how this random assortment of apparently evenly-matched players would stack up against each other, the roster was quickly labeled as possessing “depth” — an emphasis for Beard since SEC Media Day in October 2025. Back then, this quality seemed like an asset.
“I think it’s safe to say that depth could be a real ally of our team this year,” Beard said. “Of those 16 players (on the roster), we literally have 13 or 14 guys that are gonna play here for our first scrimmages and exhibition games coming up.”
Depth, however, becomes problematic when no players separate themselves from the pack. This season, only four players average more than 20 minutes per game — compared to seven from last season. In 2024-25, Pedulla, Murray and Murrell all averaged at least 30 minutes per game. This season, only Kamardine exceeds this threshold.
Beard’s use of a deep rotation this season — some games, as many as 13 players see the court — is more of a desperate search for someone, anyone, who might give the team a spark rather than a distribution of minutes among a wealth of riches.
So, what’s next?
“My promise to them (the fans) — and I don’t make a lot of promises, but I’ll deliver on this — is there’ll be better days, sooner than most people think,” Beard said in a postgame press conference after the Florida loss on Feb. 21.
But how will the program reach these better days?
The roster needs a major overhaul. Two ranked prospects are set to join Ole Miss from high school: four-star combo guard Yohance Connor, who verbally committed in November, and three-star small forward Jaron Saulsberry, who signed on National Signing Day a few months ago.
Considering the fact that forward Niko Bundalo, the highest-rated recruit in program history, averages only 3.2 minutes per game this season, these additions might not mean much.
Transfers are the name of the game in college basketball. Beard needs to land splash transfers who were stars on their previous teams, players who will immediately factor in as potential all-conference selections. Pedulla, to illustrate, was the go-to guy on Virginia Tech, and Davis scored 15 points per game at Seton Hall in 2023-24.
Otherwise, in a conference which has become one of the toughest in the country, Ole Miss Men’s Basketball’s woes could continue.
