Ole Miss Basketball: Rebels overlooked as NCAA Tournament team

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 30: Mississippi Rebels head coach Andy Kennedy directs his team during the first half against the Penn State Nittany Lions during their championshiop game of the Barclays Center Classic at Barclays Center on November 30, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) /

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ATLANTA, GA – MARCH 13: Head coach Andy Kennedy of the Mississippi Rebels reacts during the second round of the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Georgia Dome on March 13, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

How Experts View Ole Miss

Even though the Rebels’ talent and experience is clear when you break down their roster, experts continue to look past Ole Miss.

CBS Sports recently released their early SEC power rankings and Ole Miss was picked to finish 12^th in the conference. The Rebels were picked behind South Carolina who lost their three perimeter starters including their two best players Sindarius Thornwell and PJ Dozier.

They were also picked behind Georgia who lost JJ Frazier. Frazier did a majority of the scoring and creating for Georgia and was their lone perimeter scoring threat. Both Georgia and South Carolina should be much worse than they were last season as they do not have suitable replacements for their departed star players. As described above, Ole Miss has improved their team significantly and should definitely finish higher than these teams.

It would be foolish to say that CBS’s opinion is definitively wrong, especially in August, but it is hard to see the logic for ranking Ole Miss 12^th behind teams like Georgia and South Carolina that lost so much and are considerably less talented.

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