Ole Miss Men’s Basketball Returns to Action

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

The Ole Miss men’s basketball team opens the 2022-23 regular season this evening as they play host to the Alcorn State Braves. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. CT inside SJB Pavilion and on SEC Network+.

Ole Miss is coming off of a 91-62 exhibition victory over West Georgia. The Rebels held West Georgia to 33.8 percent from the floor and 20 percent from beyond the arc.

In the exhibition game, the Rebels were lead in scoring by Jaemyn Brakefield with 16 points and transfer Jayveous McKinnis with 14 points.

McKinnis joins three other players in Theo Akwuba, Myles Burns, Josh Maballa out of the transfer portal and four freshmen in Amaree Abram, TJ Caldwell, Robert Cowherd and Malique Ewin as eight new faces for head coach Kermit Davis and his staff.

Alcorn completed the 2021-22 season as the SWAC regular-season champion with a 17-17 overall record and 14-4 SWAC mark, reaching the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) for the third time.

When the game is tipped off it will mark just the fifth all-time meeting between the Rebels and Braves, a series that began in 1985 with a tight neutral site matchup in Jackson. Ole Miss is a perfect 4-0 against Alcorn State, with this tonight being their first meeting since 2010. The Rebels hold two victories with 100 points or more in 1991 (111-67) and 2010 (100-62) — both in Oxford. The series has gone to Lorman once in 2005, with the Rebels emerging victorious 82-69. The lone neutral site meeting was the aforementioned series opener in Jackson in 1985, with the Rebels edging out a 76-70 win.