{"id":64064,"date":"2019-01-16T17:28:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T23:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=64064"},"modified":"2019-01-16T17:28:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T23:28:21","slug":"betting-on-the-rebels-has-been-a-bonanza%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/betting-on-the-rebels-has-been-a-bonanza%ef%bb%bf\/","title":{"rendered":"Betting on the Rebels Has Been a Bonanza\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <strong>Ole Miss Rebels<\/strong> are still getting no love from odds-makers, even after a 13-3 start that included an absolute demolition of #11 <strong>Auburn <\/strong>(82-67) <em>and <\/em>a road win over #14 <strong>Mississippi State<\/strong> (81-77). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbettingdime.com\/college-basketball\/tournament-champion-odds\/\">Sportsbettingdime.com\u2019s\nNCAA Tournament odds<\/a> tracker, Ole Miss is not among the top-five SEC\ncontenders in the March Madness futures, sitting at an average of +25000\n(250\/1) to win the tournament, well behind \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Tennessee: +1300 (13\/1)<\/li><li>Kentucky: +1600 (16\/1)<\/li><li>Auburn: +2800 (28\/1)<\/li><li>Mississippi State: +7200 (72\/1)<\/li><li>Florida: +8300 (83\/1)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Bovada, one of the biggest offshore\nsportsbooks, doesn\u2019t even have the Rebs on the board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The outlook for this team at the start of the year was understandably gloomy. <strong>Andy Katz<\/strong> (and <em>many<\/em> others) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/basketball-men\/article\/2018-10-17\/sec-basketball-predictions-every-team-ranked-2018-2019\">picked them to bring up the rear in the SEC<\/a>, and not even the most optimistic fans predicted a 13-3 record through the first 16 games. This team went 12-20 last year, finished dead-last in the SEC, and returned mostly the same players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, at this point, there has been a big\nenough sample size to say that this is more than a lucky hot streak, and if\nodds-makers don\u2019t start giving Ole Miss basketball a little more credit, they\ncould get burned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rebels have the best record in the <em>entire nation<\/em> against the spread, currently sitting at 14-2. They have pounded the teams they should pound, like <strong>Louisiana-Monroe<\/strong> and <strong>Florida Gulf-Coast<\/strong>, and been tireless competitors on the road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kermit Davis<\/strong> has improved the team in all facets in his first year, continuing the strong track record he brought from <strong>Middle Tennessee<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, the Rebels finished 108<sup>th<\/sup>\noverall in the KenPom rankings, which measures teams by their offensive and\ndefensive efficiency. They were the only SEC team outside the top 100. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"528\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-OleMissBasketball-01.jpg?resize=640%2C528\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-61093\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-OleMissBasketball-01.jpg?w=763&amp;ssl=1 763w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-OleMissBasketball-01.jpg?resize=300%2C247&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>They are up to 37<sup>th<\/sup>. Their\noffense ranks 28<sup>th<\/sup> (40 spots better than last year) and their\ndefense ranks 68<sup>th<\/sup> (a full <em>100\n<\/em>spots better than last year). It\u2019s that defensive improvement that should\nreally make people into believers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if <strong>Breein Tyree<\/strong> (17.2 PPG 39.0 3P%) and <strong>Terence Davis<\/strong> (16.1 PPG, 42.3 3P%) regress in terms of their shooting \u2013 which they probably will, since Tyree is a career 35.2% from three and Davis is 34.1% &#8212; defense is about hustle and scheme more than individual talent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davis\u2019 MTSU squads <em>always <\/em>had a solid scheme and <em>always\n<\/em>hustled. They finished 35<sup>th<\/sup> in defensive efficiency in his final\nseason and were regularly in the top 50, despite never having a four or\nfive-star recruit during Davis\u2019 tenure (according to the records at <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/college\/middle-tennessee-state\/Season\/2003-Basketball\/Commits\/\">247sports.com<\/a>).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As long as his players keep putting in the\neffort, Davis\u2019 Rebels will keep getting results. While a Final Four run would\nbe a stretch, they should continue to outperform odds-makers projections on a\ngame-by-game basis until sportsbooks adjust to the new reality of Ole Miss\nbasketball. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"The Local Voice Ligature\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ole Miss Rebels are still getting no love from odds-makers, even after a 13-3 start that included<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":63988,"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":[16],"tags":[13798,89,13799,11944,9601,1644,4433,7067,2013,700,2311,9602],"class_list":["post-64064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-athletics","tag-andy-katz","tag-basketball","tag-breein-tyree","tag-kermit-davis","tag-middle-tennessee","tag-mississippi-state","tag-odds","tag-ole-miss","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-rebels","tag-sec","tag-terence-davis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-01-15-OleMissBasketball.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64064","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\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}