After a week off, the Ole Miss men’s basketball team will return to the court Saturday, traveling to Tuscaloosa to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide. In their last game this past Saturday, the Rebels held off South Carolina for a 66-62 win in Oxford. Head coach Andy Kennedy said he thinks the week off came at a perfect time for his team.
Signees: Bo Wallace, Maikhail Miller (Greyshirt from last year’s class)
Grade: C+
Ole Miss failed to sign a true high school quarterback in this class, but brought in the NJCAA Offensive Player of the Year in Bo Wallace who has three years of eligibility left. Miller greyshirted from the 2011 class and enrolled in January. He’s a developmental player who will need time before competing for the starting job. Wallace should immediately compete for the starting job, but it hurt to not land either Anthony Alford or Jeremy Liggins, who committed to Southern Miss and LSU, respectively.
Signees: Channing Ward, Kameroon Wood (Greyshirt from last year’s class), John Youngblood
Grade: A
Ward is the jewel of Freeze’s first recruiting class. One of the best, if not the best player in Mississippi, he looks to step in and be an impact pass rusher for a defense that managed only 13 sacks this past season. As a senior at Aberdeen, he recorded 117 tackles and 16 sacks.
Wood and Youngblood are high-energy, high-motor guys that, if nothing else, provide depth at the position. This group could have been an “A+” if Ole Miss had landed North Pike’s A.J. Jefferson, who signed with Mississippi State.
Nkemdiche is undoubtedly the top player in the state of Georgia and will most likely be ranked as the top player in the entire country in 2013. He stands at 6’5,” 271 pounds, and runs a 4.6 40-yard dash. He recorded 19 sacks and, on the other side of the ball, rushed for 528 yards and 17 touchdowns as a junior at Grayson High School in Loganville, Ga. Nkemdiche is a physical freak who could play defensive end, defensive tackle or linebacker in a 3-4 scheme at the next level. While Alabama is thought to be his early leader, Ole Miss signed his older brother, Denzel, in the 2011 signing class.
In less than two months after being introduced as the new head football coach, Hugh Freeze put together a 19-player recruiting class, including 13 who signed their National Letters of Intent yesterday. He held together much of this year’s class despite the coaching change and made a splash with the additions of Aberdeen defensive end Channing Ward and East Mississippi Community College quarterback Bo Wallace, who signed during the junior college transfer signing period. All things considered, Freeze was pleased with his first recruiting class and is looking forward to the future.
Unlike the rooms of various recruits around the country, there was little drama in the room where defensive tackle Issac Gross and defensive end/linebacker Temario Strong each signed a letter of intent to play for Ole Miss next season. The two signees join a long list of players who have come out of South Panola and moved on to play at Ole Miss for their college careers.
Burdette committed to Hugh Freeze at Arkansas State and switched to Ole Miss in late January. Originally a running back, he was forced to play quarterback as a senior. He rushed for over 1,200 yards as a junior at the running back position. Listed as an athlete, he could play in the defensive secondary or at running back for the Rebels.
When the Ole Miss football team got back to Oxford after a 31-3 loss to Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, most of the team turned their attention to the offseason and who would be named their new head coach, but freshman Senquez Golson turned his attention to baseball and the friendly confines of Oxford/University Stadium at Swayze Field.
They say the college football season never really ends. When the games are over and a champion is crowned, coaching searches and recruiting take center stage in college football news. However, recruiting and the way it is currently handled by all parties involved makes it completely irrelevant.
Monday night at Irie on the Square, Lafayette High School quarterback and Oxford native Jeremy Liggins stood up and faced a capacity crowd with five helmets of college teams on the table. Those five helmets represented Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Auburn. Quickly, Liggins reached out and grabbed the LSU helmet, saying simply, “Go Tigers, baby.”
While there is still a lot to be determined in this young pitching staff, one thing is clear: there is depth. The weekend starters are not yet set, but it looks as though freshman Bobby Wahl and senior R.J. Hively will take the hill on Fridays and Saturdays, respectively, for the Rebels. The Sunday spot seems to be down to three guys, but it’s anyone’s battle at the start of spring practice.
“Coach (Mike Bianco) has said that whoever performs the best is going to get the weekend spots, so we’ll see what happens,” Wahl said.
Sophomore Mike Mayers may have a slight lead at the moment with a season of SEC experience under his belt. However, freshmen Josh Laxer and Hawtin Buchanan, as well as juniors Tanner Bailey and Dylan Chavez, are right there in the mix. Look for Mayers to take the Sunday spot to start the season with two of the other four pitchers to fill the mid-week spots.
“(Mayers’) slider is something he’s worked on since last year,” head coach Mike Bianco said. “I think it’s just normal progression. He pitched over 50 innings last season, which is a ton for a freshman. The slider is better, but I think he’s better all around.”
Junior Brett Huber will be counted on in the late innings of the game and fill the closer’s role as he did his freshman year.
“Right now, I’m just working on commanding the strike zone and stuff like that,” Huber said. “I’m just working on being more consistent out there. Last year I had some problems with that.”
The road to American college tennis has not been an easy one for redshirt freshman Nik Scholtz. The South African native made his collegiate debut this past Thursday against Southern Miss.
In the 7-0 sweep of the Golden Eagles, he paired with junior Jonas Lutjen for an 8-2 win at No. 2 doubles and won in straight sets 6-2, 6-3 at No. 1 singles.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The No. 23 nationally ranked Ole Miss men’s tennis team got off to a slow start against No. 24 Tennessee in the final round of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend, but got back in the match and held a 3-2 lead, before the Vols won the final two matches for a 4-3 victory here Monday night at the Goodfriend Indoor Tennis Center.
Just 48 hours after losing a heartbreaker to Florida, the Ole Miss men’s basketball team returned to the court to host the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Rebels (14-7, 4-3 SEC) led for much of the game, but the Gamecocks (9-11, 1-5 SEC) refused to go away, knocking down shot after shot to stay in the game.
The Ole Miss women’s basketball team (12-10; 2-7 SEC) came into Sunday’s game on a three-game losing streak and was in need of an offensive spark. The Lady Rebels (12-10, 2-7 SEC) continued their slide with a 67-54 loss to Auburn (11-11, 3-6 SEC) on Sunday at the Tad Smith Coliseum. Ole Miss had another disappointing offensive performance, shooting just 32.7 percent (17-for-52) from the field and 22.2 percent (2-for-9) from three-point range, while also turning the ball over 16 times and being out-rebounded 40-32.
The start of last night’s game between the Ole Miss Rebels and 13th-ranked Florida Gators could not have gone any better for the Rebels. After Florida scored the game’s first basket, Ole Miss went on a 20-2 run to take a 16-point lead behind the hot shooting of senior Terrance Henry and junior Nick Williams. After going into halftime with a 10-point deficit, however, the Gators stormed back and outscored the Rebels 36-22 in the second half to escape with a 64-60 win.
With signing day less than a week away, The Daily Mississippian’s Bennett Hipp gives a few of the prospects that are still being pursued by Ole Miss. This isn’t an inclusive list, and names are listed alphabetically.
“The guys were very excited to have their first dual match, especially the freshmen on the team,” Ole Miss head coach Billy Chadwick said. “There is a lot of excitement with this team, and I think the fans saw that.”
Austin Miller: What are your overall thoughts on this year’s Ole Miss recruiting class?
Keith Niebuhr: It’s always difficult when you have a new staff come in and have that kind of turnover. They lost some crucial time from when it was known that Nutt wasn’t going to be back, to the time the new staff was put into place. This group did a good job, first and foremost, of securing the recruits they already had. That’s the key. So you’re almost starting from scratch. Then they went out and have gotten a few more guys. It’s not huge in numbers, but it’s high in quality. And now they land Channing Ward, which was huge. That’s a big prize in Mississippi, so that’s significant.
The Ole Miss men’s basketball team will look to take down its second ranked opponent in two weeks, as the 13th-ranked Florida Gators visit Oxford to take on the Rebels tonight. Ole Miss (13-6, 3-2 SEC) is coming off back-to-back wins over Mississippi State and Georgia this past week.
This season, the Rebels have defended their home court at the Tad Smith Coliseum with a perfect 8-0 record. After a 67-56 loss to Tennessee in its Southeastern Conference opener, Florida (15-4, 3-1 SEC) has rattled off three straight wins. However, the Gators are also just 1-4 on the road this season.
The No. 23 Rebel Netters take to the courts today to open its dual match season against Southern Miss, looking to building on their success from this past season. Doubles play will begin at 1:30 p.m. followed by singles matches at the Gillom Sports Center.
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