SEC Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade

Mississippi

November 14, 2014 (Charleston Southern 66, at Mississippi 65 OT) (GS: 19)

This previous season was really rough for Mississippi and it cost Andy Kennedy his job. He had led the Rebels for over a decade, though there weren’t many horrible performances that stuck out. Most of SEC play this past season was pretty bad, but there wasn’t one game I could pinpoint, so we looked further back and found something else. There were games here and there that stood out, either big losses or bad shooting nights, but let’s flash back to the beginning of the 2014-15 season.

Charleston Southern wasn’t a horrible team, but they also wasn’t the class of the Big South. In all fairness, this was their best season out of the last five, but that still doesn’t excuse what happened that November night in Oxford.

Scoring just 65 points in 45 minutes against Charleston Southern is just not acceptable. Trailing by 12 at the half at home against Charleston Southern is also unacceptable, but Ole Miss only managed 17 first-half points and struggled mightily. They fought back in the second half but couldn’t survive a seesawing overtime period. Martavious Newby led the Rebels with 14 in their first game without Marshall Henderson (who had graduated), and he was sorely missed. Mississippi made just 6 of their 30 3-point attempts and also missed 11 free throws, something horrible to have happen in a close game. I should also mention that they lost at the buzzer, as if this game wasn’t humiliating enough!

And as has already been mentioned, greener pastures did not follow this game, leaving Kermit Davis with quite a job to do in a suddenly potent SEC. If he can at least avoid 33 point losses at Tennessee (which happened this past February), then maybe he’ll get this team on the right track. I, however, have the feeling that something worse could follow this season.