{"id":31927,"date":"2016-03-04T10:05:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T16:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=31927"},"modified":"2016-03-03T14:45:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:45:58","slug":"win-or-go-home-which-suits-the-rebs-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/win-or-go-home-which-suits-the-rebs-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Win Or Go Home: Which Suits The Rebs Best?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With one game remaining in the regular season, Ole Miss Basketball<\/strong> is staring down a familiar reality: the team\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 is well short of meriting an invite to the NCAA tournament<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DSC_7960_WEB\"<\/a>
Coach Andy Kennedy’s squad is in a bit of a predicament.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, Rebel fans have been relatively spoiled of late in the NCAA invite department. It\u2019s always a measure of a program\u2019s success and vitality to secure a bid in the tournament, but it\u2019s unrealistic to assume that you\u2019ll contend for a spot every year. Perhaps the excitement of recent visits, coupled with the arrival of a shiny new arena, inflated Rebel Nation\u2019s expectations for 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be fair to call this season a disappointing one, though. And perhaps missing out on a bid was in the Rebs\u2019 best interest, after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Ole Miss fails to win the SEC tournament (the only real shot they have at landing a spot in the NCAA bracket), but still puts in a solid showing in Nashville<\/strong> next week, the Rebels could find themselves in the advantageous position of playing host to some early NIT games.<\/span><\/p>\n

And really, that may be in the program\u2019s best interest. Should the Rebs make an improbable run in the SEC tournament, they would (likely) face the prospect of traveling to the other side of the country to be handled by a superior squad. The program\u2019s fifteen minutes of fame would be relegated to a mid-afternoon game or two on an obscure sports channel, breezed over in wide-sweeping ESPN highlight segments and generally dismissed by everyone whose bracket is intact.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, alternatively, Ole Miss could host some winnable games in the brand-new Pavilion<\/strong> and show off their brand in a more positive light on a national stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DSC_8273_WEB\"<\/a>
Stefan Moody has long been one of the most productive aspects of the Rebel Basketball offense.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It would certainly be a treat for Ole Miss fans, too, to get another few glimpses at Stefan Moody<\/strong>. No disrespect meant to Gielo<\/strong>, Newby<\/strong>, and Perez<\/strong>\u2014the program\u2019s other seniors\u2014but Moody has been the engine to Andy Kennedy<\/strong>\u2019s machine for the past couple of seasons, and has routinely dazzled Rebel fans with high-effort, athletic performances at both sides of the floor. He\u2019s the latest in a long string of show-stopping Rebel guards, and his graduation will leave a gaping hole for Ole Miss Basketball in the Pavilion era (until the next guy steps up, presumably).<\/span><\/p>\n

And really, doesn\u2019t he deserve a better send-off in the Pavilion than an ultimately-meaningless game against a losing Mississippi State<\/strong> squad?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s curious to be a sports fan, sometimes, when you wish something other than the very best for your team. But who knows; the very best result of Ole Miss\u2019s SEC Tournament might not be the very best result for the Rebs\u2019 season, on the whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, Ole Miss could run through the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament undefeated and be crowned national champions in Andy Kennedy\u2019s tenth season. That\u2019s why they call it March Madness<\/strong>: nobody really has any clue what\u2019s about to happen, and that\u2019s what makes it fun. \"The<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Ole Miss tips off at Tennessee at 11 am on Saturday, March 5. The SEC Tournament will be held at Nashville\u2019s Bridgestone Arena, March 9-13.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With one game remaining in the regular season, Ole Miss Basketball is staring down a familiar reality: the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":31931,"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":[4614,5256,5973,4723,5714,4610,7577,4620,7596],"class_list":["post-31927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ole-miss","tag-andy-kennedy","tag-anthony-perez","tag-march-madness","tag-martavious-newby","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ole-miss-basketball","tag-pavilion","tag-stefan-moody","tag-tomasz-gielo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/SEC-BBall_FEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31927","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=31927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}