Ole Miss Men’s Basketball held Media Day Prior to Practice

By Adam Brown
Sports Editor
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com

The Ole Miss men’s basketball team began practice for the start of the 2021-22 season on Wednesday.

“(Wednesday) is the 51st time that we have been able to work with our team in limited hours,” head coach Kermit Davis said at Ole Miss media day. “We are very excited about our team with a lot of work ahead of us.”

The Rebels had a 45-minute walk-through on Wednesday morning with the first practice that afternoon according to Davis.

This season, Ole Miss has five transfer players and eight high school players added to the roster.

“In the next two weeks understanding what we can really do defensively and what are our strengths offensively,” Davis said.

This season, Davis and his staff look to speed up the offense.

“We need to have more positions,” he said. “Last year, we did not shoot it at a great clip and our assist to turnover was not good. We just had to win it doing the defensive rebounding and things.”

Davis added that this season the squad shoots it better and is much faster in transition.

Oxford native Jarkel Joiner has made a jump into his senior season as an Ole Miss Rebel.
“It’s unbelievable how much improvement he’s made since this time last year,” Davis said. “His assist-to-turnover is almost three-to-one in our practices. We keep every stat, but it’s almost three-to-one since June, and that’s what really good guards can do. His leadership has even grown. We thought that he was a good on-ball defender at times, but not great off the ball.”
The Rebels added Duke transfer Jameyn Brakefield to the lineup.

“Jaemyn is 6-8 or 6-9, very skilled, can really shoot. We’ve talked a lot about it, positionless players, and that’s what he is,” Davis said. “His biggest thing in front of him is can he guard one through four? I mean guard ones and twos and threes (aside from fours) and stay in a stance, keep guys in front, and compete. He’s a really good passer, and he’s been a really good teammate.”

Ole Miss has an exhibition game against Trevecca on November 5 to open the season slate.