Ole Miss basketball parts ways with coach Kermit Davis after five seasons
OXFORD — For the first time in his tenure, Ole Miss Athletic Director Keith Carter will hire a head coach to lead the program he once played for.
Ole Miss mutually agreed to part ways with men's basketball coach Kermit Davis on Friday after five seasons at the helm of the program. Win Case will be the Rebels' interim head coach for the remainder of the season. This season under Davis, the Rebels stand with their worst winning percentage since 1994-95. The Rebels are just 10-18, including 2-13 in SEC play. The season was over before the New Year and featured one of the worst defeats in program history in a home loss to North Alabama.
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The Rebels are among the worst offenses in the SEC this season. They present no real interior threat, and shoot only 28.9% from 3-point range. Without a true strength on that end of the court, Ole Miss is often prone to long, listless stretches of offense that cost it games. Defensively, the Rebels are better, but the analytics ultimately place them comfortably in the SEC's bottom half. Ole Miss is good enough to offer some resistance at times, but not good enough for Davis to get the wins he needed to keep his job.
"We thank Coach Davis for his dedication to the Ole Miss basketball program and our student-athletes," Carter said in a prepared statement. "No one wanted to bring a title home to Mississippi more than him, and we appreciate the passion for that goal that he shared with our team every day. As he has throughout his career, Coach Davis worked tirelessly to produce a winner, and we wish him, Betty and his family the very best in the future."
Those deficiencies were often made worse by unavailabilities. Point guard Daeshun Ruffin – figuring to be the Rebels' No. 2 guy in 2022-23 – struggled to return from his knee injury and missed games due to illness. In late January, he announced he was stepping away from the program to focus on his mental and physical health. Top scorer Matthew Murrell also missed three games due to injury, and the Rebels had other availability-related problems.
But this was far from a one-year bump in the road for Davis. He arrived from Middle Tennessee for the 2018-19 season and immediately led Ole Miss to the NCAA Tournament as an 8-seed, winning 10 SEC games and garnering conference coach of the year honors on the way. It looked like the beginning of something special, but the Rebels never got back to the dance under Davis, a Mississippi State alumnus.
Ole Miss went 6-12 in SEC play during the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season. A year later, the Rebels again won 10 SEC games but had to settle for the NIT, which they exited in the first round. Since then, the results have been disastrous. Davis went 4-14 in SEC play in 2021-22 before an equally awful 2022-23 campaign.
"My family and I are extremely thankful for the opportunity to lead the Ole Miss men's basketball program the past five years," Davis said in the school's news release. "We appreciate Chancellor (Glenn) Boyce, Keith Carter, the staff and players for their support and work ethic on behalf of our program, and I wish Ole Miss the best going forward. Oxford is a special place to live and work."
Player and prospect retention in the next months will be a key topic. As bad as the Rebels have been lately, Davis has performed well on the recruiting trail. The group of freshmen Ole Miss brought in this past season ranked 25th nationally according to the 247Sports Composite. The class that inked National Letters of Intent last November ranked 20th, making it the highest-rated recruiting class in Ole Miss basketball history. The next head coach will have to decide how much of a roster rebuild is needed.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Kermit Davis fired: Ole Miss basketball out after five seasons
