Ole Miss is going to the NCAA Tournament.
That is a sentence that would’ve sounded outlandish and preposterous in November, a long shot in December, and wishful thinking in January. But that sentence is now a fact after Ole Miss’ 73-68 win over Missouri on Saturday to end a regular season that defied odds and even logic.
The Rebels finished the regular season 20-11 and 10-8 in league play. Kermit Davis took essentially the same personnel that won 12 games a season ago, elevated them individually to be the best version of themselves and won 10 games in a league they were projected to finish last in, and with good reason. He got Bruce Stevens to exert enough consistent effort defensively to justify the minutes he played. He implored Terence Davis to become a better defender. He got contributions from a pair of freshmen — K.J. Buffen and Blake Hinson — virtually the only reinforcements he brought to Oxford with Franco Miller missing the season with an injury. He moved Devontae Shuler to point guard to allow Breein Tyree to thrive offensively off the ball on the wing. Kermit Davis, above all else, extracted the best qualities from individuals that comprised a team that lacked confidence and mental fortitude. The team also lacked depth, consistent post play and defensive prowess. Kermit Davis got results despite it all.
This win didn’t come without hardship. Ole Miss trailed by double digits in the second half and appeared to be slipping towards its fourth loss in a row, the wrong side of a weak bubble and a full on collapse in the twilight hours of the season. But the Rebels found a way, thanks in large part to the play of Devontae Shuler, who scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half and made a pair of signifiant three pointers. Buffen provided good minutes down the closing stretch and scored eight points along with six rebounds.
“Devontae Shuler was the spark of this game,” Breein Tyree said. “He came in, lip busted, playing as hard as he could. He really gave us a spark. I know I was trying to feed off his energy.”
Davis didn’t hide what was at stake for his team going in, though they likely already knew it. He wrote it on a whiteboard in the locker room and inquired as to whether any of his players had competed in a game in which a win would lock up an NCAA Tournament bid. Ole Miss knew what was on the line in the season finale and didn’t run from it. The Rebels entered the game losers of three in a row and, truthfully, probably felt pretty good about how they had played in two of those. The sense of frustration amongst the was palpable. Ever since Ole Miss beat Georgia two weeks ago, it needed one more win to lock down a bid. Aside from a lethargic effort at Arkansas that backed the team into a corner, the Rebels had played pretty well against Kentucky and Tennessee only to see unfavorable results.
But all of that is moot now. Ole Miss beat a Missouri team that was gaining confidence and had been playing a cleaner brand of basketball despite its record, on senior day, on the road for a quadrant-one road win that sealed its postseason fate.
“You never really know until you see your name on that Sunday,” Kermit Davis said. “But I feel good about where we are.”
Ole Miss was 6-5 in true road games this season, a statistic emblematic of the mentality change Kermit Davis orchestrated. This season truly did defy odds. Aside from the Rebels being picked last in the preseason, pinpointing five or six SEC wins was difficult to prognosticate going through the schedule in November. The Rebels will finish tied for sixth in the SEC, eight spots above where it was supposed to land.
Who will win SEC Coach of The Year hasn’t been decided and is ultimately insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but Kermit Davis certainly has a compelling case. He won 10 conference games in a rigorous conference with mostly the same team that did not win a true road game in 2018 until March. He morphed what was seen as a multi-year rebuild into a quick fix.
Ole Miss is headed to the NCAA Tournament and capped one of the more remarkable turnarounds in the history of the program with a win that, at times, looked as unlikely as the idea of it making the NCAA Tournament did when the season began.
