If Tuesday and Wednesday are any indication, and if the slate for the weekend can be believed, we’re in for a classic few games.
Each week during the year, we’ll talk about three games on the weekend slate—one you have to see, one you have to keep an eye on and one you should avoid at all costs. It’s like getting your reps in at the gym and… you’ve already stopped going, haven’t you?
Well, there’s always next year.
As always, the weekend begins at 7 p.m. ET on Friday. Apologies to UConn, which visits Hinkle Fieldhouse to take on a frisky Butler fresh off Thad Matta getting tossed against St. John’s.
Must Watch (Times ET)
No. 22 Ole Miss at No. 5 Tennessee (6 p.m., Saturday, SEC Network)
Some years ago, before top-25 voting got at least a bit of savvy to it, this would be a top-10 Ole Miss team heading to a mid-teens Tennessee side hungry to tack a big win on the resume’.
So understanding just how paper-thin the Rebels margin for error has been is an important bit of context to add here. Ole Miss has gotten fat off a schedule of patsy’s, going 8-0 against Quad 4 teams, including six that sit 200 or worse in KenPom rankings. Included among these wins against utterly butt teams:
A one-point victory against a Detroit-Mercy team that has no wins through two months of the season.
Trailed by multiple possessions against Sam Houston with less than four minutes to go before being bailed out by Allen Flanigan (23 points) and the refs (23-13 foul discrepancy) at home.
Bailed out by Flanigan (26 points) again at Temple, when he sank two free-throws with nine seconds to go as the Rebels hung on for a win.
And yet… they absolutely thrashed a pretty game North Carolina State, outlasted Memphis at home and won their lone A-tier game (defined by KenPom as a top 50 opponent adjusting for the location of the game) at UCF. If we’re going to ding Ole Miss for its shortcomings (top of the list: hiring Chris Beard in the first place), we have to give the Rebels their flowers for what is almost certainly going to go down as a top-10 season in program history barring a complete collapse. Considering this is the most .500 program in college basketball history (all-time record of 1369-1361), that’s as damning as the faint praise is likely to get.