A New Era

A new era in Ole Miss basketball will begin tomorrow as Andy Kennedy will officially be announced to the Ole Miss family as the new head coach of the Ole Miss men's basketball team. Kennedy comes to Ole Miss after serving this year as interim head coach at the University of Cincinnati. He had a successful season based on the circumstances surrounding the Bearcats team. Kennedy comes to Ole Miss after serving as an assistant at South Alabama, UAB, and most recently Cincinnati. He was the lead recruiter under Bob Huggins at Cincinnati and had several top 20 recruiting classes. Kennedy brings great knowledge of X's and O's to Oxford as well as his strong recruiting ability. These are two things the basketball program has lacked over the past several years.

Kennedy is a native of Louisville, MS and played basketball at both NC State and UAB during his college career. He is the second all time leading scorer at UAB. Kennedy also spent several years abroad playing professional basketball before returning to coach at South Alabama.

I believe this is a very good move by our administration. I think Kennedy brings a great work ethic to Oxford and is also very knowledgeable of the game. His connection to the state is going to do nothing but help the Rebels. He seems to be a guy that is going to be very dedicated to the growth of this program and its return to success.

Where do we go from here? This is all pure speculation. Some of the names that could be headed back to Oxford as assistants are former Rebel great John Stroud as well as Barnes assistant Tracy Dildy. I would like to keep Dildy around because of his connection with the current players. It is also said that Kennedy could possibly be bringing a player or two with him to Oxford from Cincinnati. I do not know if this will happen, but when coaching changes are made players tend to move around a little.

A press conference will be held tomorrow at Tad Smith Coliseum at noon. It is going to be open to the public and everyone is encouraged to attend. Unfortunately I will not be in attendance as I am currently out of town. However we hope to have some field reporters in place and I will have a complete report of the press conference sometime over the weekend.

This is a new beginning for the Rebel basketball program. Do not expect immediate NCAA tournament appearances. I hope everyone will support the Kennedy era at Ole Miss. Let's give this guy a chance and support him 100%.