TAMPA, Fla. — Kermit Davis’ mind was on the offseason Wednesday night, just minutes after his fourth season at Ole Miss ended with a loss to Missouri in the first game of the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
To be specific, the veteran coach was already thinking about the NCAA transfer portal, admitting the Rebels have to find impact players this offseason if they’re going to avoid a repeat of the disaster that was the 2021-22 season.
“We can't miss in the portal,” Davis said. “We’ve got to go and find guys that are physical, that would like to compete and can do it in this league. You know, last year we swept Auburn and Kentucky and we won the fourth most games in this league.”
This season, however, Ole Miss was 13-19, losers of 15 of 19 games against SEC foes. The Rebels had injuries, of course, but the roster was exposed as thin and ineffective.
“So I know one thing with Daeshun Ruffin coming back and these two guys right here (referring to Matthew Murrell and Jarkel Joiner, who were sitting next to him in the postgame press conference), and we have four guys in our high school class that will be a top-20 class, is that we've got a great, great foundation,” Davis said.
Davis referred to national powers Kentucky and Auburn, both of whom leaned heavily into the transfer portal last offseason, building teams that enter March as national championship contenders.
“And you think about both those teams now have a chance to win the national championship so you can get well in a hurry,” Davis said. “We’re going to get well in a hurry. …The message to our players is we've got to go to work and we're not gonna let them down, we’re not going to let Ole Miss down and we're going to get to work and build a roster that's going to be able to compete the very best in this league.”
The only for-sure departure from Ole Miss’ roster is 25-year-old center Nysier Brooks, who scored six points and grabbed one rebound in his final college game Wednesday. Joiner went through Senior Day festivities prior to this past Saturday’s loss to Vanderbilt, but he hasn’t closed the door on returning for a final season.
Ole Miss had four freshmen this season. Only one, Ruffin, played significant minutes. The Rebels have four incoming freshmen signed to join the program this summer. Several veterans — Joiner, Murrell, Luis Rodriguez, Sammy Hunter, Austin Crowley, Robert Allen and Tye Fagan — have eligibility remaining. Roster turnover seems inevitable.
“We all know that this season, it wasn’t planned to go this way,” Murrell said. “We all just have to make sure this offseason, we’re working hard and come back with a vengeance, ready to play and ready to shock the world,” Murrell said.
“We've got to go in that transfer portal and get some athletic guys that, that can go play,” Davis said, “…They tipped it up (and) they started four transfers, and I've been in this league with my dad coaching since I was five years old. And you couldn't imagine that Kentucky would have four transfers to start senior night at Kentucky, but it's just kind of the way of the world and credit Cal (Kentucky coach John Calipari) and (Auburn coach) Bruce (Pearl) both, you know, what they did to, to resurrect their rosters. And so that's what we got to do.”
Davis said he’s talked with Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter and is confident he’s going to get time to fix things in Oxford.
“I've got an unbelievable AD,” Davis said. “He was a big part of the process with Ross (Bjork) when they hired me four years ago.”
Davis referenced the one NCAA Tournament bid and last year’s NIT bid but admitted the SEC is a “big-boy league and I get it. I've got a great AD and we're going to work day and night to get this thing flipped next year.
“We're going to go out and put together a roster that the Ole Miss fans can be proud of. We're going to be right here next year, hoping to play for seeding in the NCAA tournament and having a great chance to win it in Nashville.”
-- AuburnSports.com's Brian Stultz contributed to this report.