17. Mississippi (15-3)
It didn’t seem like it at the time, but Mississippi’s win at Louisville to begin December has aged spectacularly. The Rebels have good analytics and have played great basketball in the first two months of the season, being right in all of their games except for a post-Christmas stinker at Memphis. They entered what was their toughest week so far this season and had quite the pair of ballgames.
Tuesday’s performance was an immense success, as the Rebels got a Top 5 road win with a 74-64 victory at Alabama. Malik Dia had a monster performance with 23 points and 19 rebounds to shoulder the load in a massive upset. Their perfect start to SEC play came to an end on Saturday night, losing an overtime thriller 84-81 to rival Mississippi State. Jaemyn Brakefield had 20 points and 7 rebounds while Sean Pedulla added 18 points in a tough but close loss on the road.
Two really tough ranked road games were on the schedule for Ole Miss and they didn’t falter, putting on a show in both games and coming away with a split. Many might have written them off after that game against Memphis a few weeks ago but Chris Beard’s team is proving that they belong in this deep league. They’ll need to keep proving that as each week provides new challenges, continuing with Texas A&M and Missouri next week.