The Ole Miss men’s basketball team moved up one spot to No. 24 in the latest Associated Press rankings after improving to 12-0 over the weekend.
Senior guard and team veteran Matthew Murrell helped propel the Rebels through another successful week of nonconference play as the team found victories over Troy on Tuesday and Southern Miss on Saturday.
During the midweek match in Oxford against the Trojans, the Memphis native posted a double-double with 18 points and 10 steals in the 74-53 blowout win.
In the program’s first match against the Golden Eagles since 2011, Murrell put on a show in front of the mostly Ole Miss crowd in the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. He recorded 26 points and five steals to help cement an 89-72 advantage over the in-state foe.
“We want to play really good teams. We want to play teams that prepare us for SEC play, or teams similar that we might see in the NCAA Tournament or the postseason. That’s exactly how we feel about Southern Miss” Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said.
So far this season, Murrell leads the team in scoring with 16.9 points per game. Other notable contributors include Auburn transfer Allen Flanigan with 7.3 rebounds per game and Saint Peter’s transfer Jaylen Murray with 3.8 assists per game.
Ole Miss currently joins Houston and James Madison as the only three unbeaten teams in the country. The Rebels will round out nonconference play in a Sunday afternoon home match against Bryant. That game will tip off at 3 p.m. CT and will be streamed on the SEC Network as well as participating SuperTalk Mississippi stations.
The full top 25 can be found below:
- Purdue
- Kansas
- Houston
- Arizona
- UConn
- Tennessee
- Florida Atlantic
- Kentucky
- North Carolina
- Marquette
- Illinois
- Oklahoma
- Gonzaga
- BYU
- Colorado State
- Duke
- Baylor
- Clemson
- Memphis
- James Madison
- Texas
- Creighton
- Wisconsin
- Ole Miss
- Providence
