Ole Miss Faces BYU Tuesday in First Round of NCAA Tourney

Ole Miss was selected into the 2015 NCAA Basketball Tournament Sunday night, kicking off their March Madness dreams in Dayton, Ohio, for the first round play-in game against the BYU Cougars. The winner will advance to the second round as the No. 11 seed to face No. 6 Xavier in Jacksonville, Florida.

Photo courtesy Joshua McCoy, Ole Miss Athletics

This will be the first-ever meeting on the hardwood between BYU and Ole Miss.

Ole Miss closed out the SEC tournament falling to South Carolina 60-58 and enter the tournament 20-12 on the year. The Rebels are going to their second NCAA appearance in three years and eighth overall appearance in the Big Dance.

Junior guard Stefan Moody was selected All-SEC first team by the league’s coaches. Moody marks the first first-team selection for the Rebels since Chris Warren in 2011 and the 15th All-SEC selection under head coach Andy Kennedy.

BYU closed out the regular season 25-9 record and was the No.2 seed in the West Coast Conference where they dropped the last game to No. 1-seeded Gonzaga in the tournament finals.

The Cougars are second in the country in scoring at 83.6 points per game. Senior guard Tyler Haws leads his team in shooting at 21.9 points per game, while junior Kyle Collinsworth is right behind, adding 14 points of his on each time out on the court.

Haws was named to the Wooden Award ballot, the Naismith Midseason Top 30, a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award and a Jerry West Award finalist.

As a squad, BYU is cleaning up the boards by pulling in 38.5 rebounds each time out on the floor which currently has them sitting at No. 15 in the country in rebounding. The Cougars are also fond of sharing the rock between players, earning 16.8 assists a game, which is fifth in the country.

Fans can watch all the action of this first-round play-in game on TruTV or listen to all the action on the Ole Miss Radio Network.

Adam Brown is HottyToddy.com sports editor and can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.