Ole Miss Men’s Basketball Takes on Memphis on the Road

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

Ole Miss men’s basketball team returns to the hardwood on Saturday evening as they travel up I-55 to take on the Memphis Tigers. Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN2 inside the FedEx Forum.

Ole Miss (6-1) looks to bounce back from a 59-55 loss to Oklahoma in the ESPN Events Invitational Championship in Orlando, Florida.  The Rebels were led in scoring by Amaree Abram with 17 points.

In the ESPN Events Invitational tournament, Ole Miss defeated Stanford (72-68) and Siena (74-62).

Abram finished the invitational averaging 20.7 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.0 SPG, .641 FG (25-39), .750 3PT (6-8), 1.000 FT (6-6).

Memphis rolls into the matchup with a 5-2 overall record after an 87-68 victory over North Alabama on Wednesday night. The Tigers also took part in the ESPN Events Invitational and fell to Seton Hall 69-70 in the first round on Thanksgiving.

Memphis then got back-to-back wins over Nebraska (73-61) and Stanford (56-48).

This season, the Tigers are led in scoring by Kendric Davis 19.3 ppg.

The Tigers lead the all-time series 28-15, but the Rebels have won four of the last five meetings and eight of the previous 13. Memphis earned a 23-11 victory in 1910 to tip off the series, and after another win in 1923, Ole Miss rattled off six consecutive wins. The Tigers took command of the series from there, though, winning 13 straight from 1952 to 1977, with the Rebels snapping the streak with a 92-89 neutral site win in New Orleans on Dec. 26, 1978. Memphis bounced back with eight more in a row from 1979 to 1998 — including three overtime contests — but Ole Miss holds the series edge since its 74-64 win in Oxford in 1999 with an 8-5 advantage since. Included in that 23-year stretch are two three-game Rebel winning streaks from 1999-2001 and 2010-16. Sparking that last three-game streak was the lone postseason meeting between the Rebels and Tigers in the NIT, with the Rebels winning 90-81 in Oxford on March 19, 2010. Each of the last five games in the series have all been decided by single digits, with Ole Miss standing tall at 4-1 — the lone loss a narrow 87-86 heartbreaker at No. 16 Memphis on Nov. 23, 2019.