Number Ten: The Fall of Ole Miss Basketball

The number ten Ole Miss sports memory I will walk away with from Ole Miss, is the fall of the Ole Miss basketball program. Growing up through my teenage years the Ole Miss basketball team dominated, and I was looking forward to having the same experience during my college years at Ole Miss. I can remember going to the SEC Tournament growing up in Orlando, Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, etc. Seeing players like Gerald Glass, Joezon Darby, Keith Carter, J.J. Sims, Justin Reed, Raheem Lockhart and many many more. I was ready to witness the same type tournament play in college.

Well, things did not work out as planned. During my four years at Ole Miss, the overall record was 55-63. Never having a winning record in the past four years. Most of the games were awful, the competition was bad, and we were just plain bad. However there were some good ones thrown in here and there throughout my college career. And I attended the games win or loose, Christmas Break or Spring Break, I was there hoping my Rebels could win. The only excitement I got out of many of these games was watching Robert Cook never win the free pizza passed out in the stands during his tenure at Ole Miss. This excitement rivaled watching Sam Ford and Drew Levanway as part of the Rebel Patrol Squad try to fire up the few fans in attendance.

One of the best trips Ole Miss basketball fans can take is the trip to Memphis for the Ole Miss/Memphis State game. My freshman year as a pledge I received a phone call at home in Greenwood from Sidney Allen wanting to know if I wanted to go the game in Memphis with them. I drove to meet Sid, Keith Studdard, and Sam Peters(who I did not really know until this trip, boy has knowing this guy been a rollercoaster) in Oxford, not knowing if I was going to have to conduct pledge activities on this trip. Needless to say I did not. We arrived in Memphis and after checking in went bar to bar to Rendezvous to bar to game. If memory serves me correct we lost this game at the Pyramid by about five or six points After a long night on Beale Street and a homeless man taking us to Denny's, my first experience of a basketball road trip was over. There has never been and probably never will be a better trip to watch the Rebel Roundballers. If we continue to play Memphis in basketball, I encourage everyone to make this trip.

I did however attend one SEC Tournament my freshman year in New Orleans. My sister and I made the trip down to the Big Easy. There were only true basketball fans there. Students like Morrow Bailey, Jamie Hart, Charlie Swayze, and Edward Peacock just to name a few. These guys, like myself were true basketball fans and experienced part of the glory days of Ole Miss basketball. The Rebels surprising beat South Carolina on the first day, extending our stay an additional day, before losing to Mississippi State the next day.

The good thing is times are a changing. The University decided to let go one of our own with the firing of Rod Barnes. I liked Rod and he was always nice to me, but we had been bad for too long, and it was time for a change. A new guy is in town by the name of Andy Kennedy. Kennedy appears to have alot of fire under him and has hired an energetic staff. Those close to the program believe things will change for the better.

Unfortunately my memory of Ole Miss basketball while enrolled at the University will be a bad one. However I will sacrifice this memory for a Final Four appearance any day of the week.