{"id":29571,"date":"2015-12-07T13:27:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T18:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=29571"},"modified":"2015-12-07T14:29:02","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T19:29:02","slug":"rebs-on-the-road-again-as-nonconference-schedule-grinds-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/rebs-on-the-road-again-as-nonconference-schedule-grinds-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebs on the Road Again as Nonconference Schedule Grinds On"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one before: this year\u2019s transfer-heavy Ole Miss Basketball Squad<\/strong> has shown promise in early nonconference games, despite losing to some less-than-stellar competition along the way.<\/span>
\nYou may recall that last year\u2019s team opened up with a home loss to Charleston Southern<\/strong> before rebounding and notching a win in the NCAA tournament. So struggling early with a still-gelling lineup does not immediately spell doom and gloom for the Rebel<\/strong> roundballers. Still, the upcoming stretch of nonconference competition will be crucial to the team\u2019s development as they gear up for the SEC schedule and the opening of The Pavilion<\/strong> in January.<\/span>
\nThis Saturday, Dec. 5, Ole Miss will travel to Amherst, Massachusetts to take on the UMass Minutemen<\/strong> in the Basketball Holiday Hall of Fame Showcase (whatever that is). The Rebs\u2019 previous road invitational, the Gildan Charleston Classic, was not very kind to them\u2014Ole Miss dropped two of its three games, one to Seton Hall<\/strong> and another to a sub-.500 George Mason<\/strong> squad.<\/span>
\nUMass has impressed so far this season, handing Clemson its only loss and doing away with the always-solid Harvard Crimson<\/strong>. The Minutemen\u2019s lone blemish on the year is a road loss at Creighton<\/strong>. UMass is built somewhat like the Rebels, with most of the scoring coming from a trio of guards, led by transfer guard Jabarie Hinds\u2019<\/strong> 20 ppg. Add in the fact that UMass is enjoying their first year in a new arena, and Ole Miss will have their hands full with a mirror-image of an opponent. It should be a solid test for the Rebels\u2019 backcourt, defensively.<\/span>
\nNext comes a relatively short trip up to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to take on the winless Southeast Missouri Redhawks<\/strong>. SEMO has been, to put it politely, uncompetitive in each of its contests this year; their closest game at press time was a nine-point loss at UT-Pan American<\/strong>. They\u2019ve started a different lineup in almost all of their games thus far, and one doesn\u2019t get the sense that it\u2019s because of a Kentucky-esque distribution of talent. Should the Rebs lose this one, we could start asking some big questions.<\/span>
\nFinally, Ole Miss returns home for a tilt against Louisiana Tech<\/strong> in the Tad Pad\u2019s second-to-last mens\u2019 home game. The Bulldogs<\/strong> garnered some attention by knocking off Ohio State<\/strong> on the road earlier this year, but were just easily handled at Memphis<\/strong> for their first loss on the year. The Rebs would seem more talented on paper, but a packed-out Tad Pad would certainly help their chances against a team that\u2019s looking to pick fights.<\/span>
\nFor the Rebels, Stefan Moody<\/strong> and Sebastian Saiz<\/strong> have been steady, veteran options thus far and have drawn every start. Newcomers Sam Finley<\/strong> and Tomasz Geilo<\/strong> have been pleasant surprises, however, averaging a combined 16 points and 7 rebounds a game. Seven Rebs average over five points a game right now\u2014a good sign, considering that ball movement will be crucial to this offense\u2019s success.<\/span>
\nIn short, there\u2019s a lot of basketball left to be played. But these early contests are more than just exhibitions or tune-ups; many of these teams could be quality RPI boosts when Selection Sunday rolls around. The question is whether or not Kennedy\u2019s team can take advantage of this\u2014and two of the past three years, the answer has been \u201cyes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one before: this year\u2019s transfer-heavy Ole Miss Basketball Squad has shown promise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":29572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4614,4610,7446,4618,4620,5129,7447],"class_list":["post-29571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ole-miss","tag-andy-kennedy","tag-ole-miss-basketball","tag-sam-finley","tag-sebastian-saiz","tag-stefan-moody","tag-the-pavillion","tag-tomasz-geilo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/andykennedy.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}