1. Stefan Moody snapped out of his shooting slump Saturday at Auburn, making eight of 18 shots from the floor in Ole Miss’ 69-59 win over the Tigers.

With the win, Ole Miss improved to 17-10 overall and 7-7 in the Southeastern Conference. Moody, who had struggled mightily in the past couple of weeks as he worked to bounce back from a hamstring injury suffered last month, finished with 23 points.

“I don’t look at it as having a lot of pressure on me,” Moody said. “It’s my job. If making shots is what I have to do, I can’t get mad or scared to take the shot. I just have to step in and make it. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

Ole Miss held Auburn to just 33.3 percent shooting and allowed the Tigers to shoot just 6-for-24 from the 3-point line. Ole Miss was out-rebounded by 10, but the Rebels committed just eight turnovers while forcing 16.

“I thought our changing defenses bothered them simply because they don’t have a point guard,” Kennedy said. “They’re played Cinmeon Bowers. Bruce (Pearl) recruited him to be a 4/5 and now he’s having to play the point. We were just trying to change our looks to keep them out of rhythm. They’ve got outstanding shooters. They were coming off a big win at Bud Walton Arena where they made 15 of 23 from 3, so we wanted to make sure we changed the looks. I thought our pressure bothered them a little bit.”

2. The highlight of the game came in the second half when Moody blocked an Auburn shot and caught the subsequent outlet pass from Rasheed Brooks before silencing Auburn Arena with a windmill dunk.

“Usually I don’t get that wide-open of a break,” Moody said. “Once I turned around and I saw ‘Sheed was going to throw it and I looked, ooh, I slowed up. My eyes got real big.”

3. Ole Miss returns home Tuesday to face Missouri before heading to Georgia on Saturday. The Rebels finish the regular season with a March 1 home finale against Mississippi State and a March 5 regular-season finisher at Tennessee.

“At least we have our personnel back,” Kennedy said. “We’re whole. Sebastian Saiz was playing like an all-league player prior to having eye surgery. I don’t want to discount that; eye surgery is a serious thing. But he’s a guy who throws up a doughnut for us (Saturday) and he was getting about 13 (points) and 10 (rebounds) when he went down. We’ve got to get him back to playing at that level and this team will have a chance down the stretch.”

4. Rasheed Brooks scored four points and grabbed seven rebounds in 20 minutes off Ole Miss’ bench Saturday at Auburn, but the junior college transfer knows he’ll have to play a huge role next season for the Rebels – both on the court and as a leader off of it.

This season is far from done, but Brooks has already begun to formulate a strategy for next year. It starts with focus.

“I’m expected to come play every night,” Brooks said. “It’s just an adjustment I’ve got to make.”

That day-in, day-out intensity has been the toughest part of the jump from junior college hoops to the Southeastern Conference.

“It’s difficult,” Brooks said. “I know at juco, it was easier for me to get away with being inconsistent and stuff like that, not working out every day or something like that. Here, it’s just a different level. You are expected to play every night, play good every night. When you don’t, it’s hard to get wins.”

“As far as being a leader, next year I want to try to bring a toughness to the team. I want us to be a real tough team. This year I felt like we weren’t. For as small as we are, I just don’t think we’re as tough as we should be.”

5. Along those lines, Ole Miss continues to get tremendous contributions from a pair of players who are going to have huge roles next year and in the future – guard Donte Fitzgerald-Dorsey and forward Marcanvis Hymon.

Fitzpatrick-Dorsey scored just two points and grabbed one rebound and dished out one assist at Auburn, but his 13 minutes of play allowed the Rebels to give Moody a small break. Fitzpatrick-Dorsey has also emerged as one of the Rebels’ best on-ball defenders.

“Donte is going to be a tremendous player,” Kennedy said. “He’s shown huge promise. We’re seeing a lot of the things we saw when we wanted to bring him to the program. This offseason is going to be big for him in addressing some physical needs that he wasn’t able to address because of his academic situation. He’s really helped us.”

Hymon was integral at Auburn, scoring 12 points and grabbing six rebounds in 24 minutes off the Rebels’ bench.

“I thought he was huge for us in the second half and took up the slack that Sebas has given us based on him just not being back yet,” Kennedy said.

6. Then there’s Terence Davis, the seldom-used freshman guard from Southaven, Miss. Davis played just eight minutes at Auburn, but he made the most of all of them, finishing with six points, two rebounds and two steals.

“I was really pleased with TD,” Kennedy said. “It’s the second time he’s done that in SEC play. We go to him in a tight spot and he delivered. I thought his energy was great.”

“Every time he comes into the game, you can feel his energy,” Moody said. “In practice over the last few days, he’s been great. It’s just energy with him. He’s bringing it.”

7. Ole Miss opened its baseball season with a three-game sweep of Florida International in Oxford. RebelGrove.com's Chase Parham covered the series for this site, and as always, he provided phenomenal insight. Anyway, I asked him to contribute a baseball-related thought to 10 Thoughts. Here are his observations from the Rebels' opening series:

A) Tate Blackman was the story of opening weekend. A year after having high expectations poured on him and struggling mightily, he finished series No. 1 6-of-10 with six runs scored, six RBI, two doubles and a home run. It's just one week, but it's a heck of a start. He also didn't strikeout.

B) Brady Bramlett was very solid with five shutout innings, but Chad Smith and Sean Johnson lacked sharpness in week one. It's just one game, and both were making their debuts, but it's at least something to watch as Louisville comes to town. Due to lack of SEC experience past Bramlett, starting pitching remains the question mark. Talented but will there be a transition period?

C) Ryan Olenek filled in fine for Errol Robinson today, due to the junior's finger infection, but he can't miss substantial time with the ailment. Ole Miss needs him ready this weekend. We'll get another updateTuesday. He couldn't grip the bat to swingon Sunday.

D) Will Golsan told me he was uncomfortable until Saturday's bases-clearing double. He was comfortableSundaywith a big day, scoring three times. His lineup versatility is a nice asset. Golsan can hit in multiple spots.

E) James McArthur will starton Tuesday against Arkansas State. The freshman is immensely talented, and I'm eager to see an extended outing. It's a bit of an audition for him in case one of the weekend rotation spots comes open. He threw one inning and allowed a run against FIUon Saturday.

F) Out of the freshmen arms, a big tip of the cap to Andy Pagnozzi and Dallas Woolfolk. Pagnozzi entered in a tough situation and stayed really poised over 2.1 scoreless innings. He's not overpowering, but he spotted up and threw multiple pitches for strikes. Woolfolk throws in the mid 90s and lit up the gun during his one scoreless outing over the weekend. Command can vary sometimes, so we need a bigger sample size, but both freshmen were very impressive. Also, he's not a true freshman but Brady Feigl was dynamic in his one inningon Sunday. He missed last season with arm issues, but he's fully healthy and has been impressive this spring. He has a very high ceiling.

G) As was junior college transfer lefty David Parkinson. He came in with all sorts of trouble from Andrew Lowe and threw a one-pitch double play to end the inning. He pitched two more innings and did well. If a left-hander makes a weekend start at some point, he's our pick.

H) JB Woodman looks very comfortable at the plate. He punished poorly placed fastballs and didn't overswing at balls out of the zone. At times last year he pressed and tried to do too much, but he was under control against FIU. He also has a cannon in the outfield. Right field a good spot for him.

I) FIU is very average. The Panthers aren't a bad team, but the regional berth was a tad misleading last season. It was a .500 team that got hot over a four-day period. The step up in class will be tremendous this weekend when Louisville comes to town. Ole Miss gets power All-America right-hander Kyle Funkhouseron Fridaynight and has to deal with Corey Ray and Brendan McKay -- two National Player of the Year candidates. It's an interesting series and it has nothing to do with Dan McDonnell coming back to town. Since Ole Miss misses Florida and Vanderbilt this season, Louisville is the best team on the schedule. The Cardinals are very aggressive and can fluster teams with a very hard-nosed approach that borders on annoying. It's a good test for the Rebels in so many ways.

8. Denny Hamlin won the Daytona 500 on Sunday. I didn't watch it, as I was trying to write this piece while fighting a crashing headache. Also, I'm not a big NASCAR guy.

However, this week was the 15th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's death, which happened when his car slammed into the wall on Turn 4 at Daytona. Fifteen years later, racing is safer than it's ever been, thanks to safety provisions put into the sport after that tragedy.

One of the people likely saved as a result of Earnhardt's death was ARCA series racer Thomas Praytor. His father, Tommy Praytor, is a longtime friend of mine. He hosts a radio show in Mobile called "Inside Alabama Racing," and was a frequent guest on my radio show in WNSP during my six years on the air there.

Praytor knew I knew little about NASCAR, so we frequently joked around like a pair of juvenile delinquents, making every possible play on words about Mark Martin's car (the primary sponsor was Viagra) and the late racer Dick Trickle. Praytor came on the Oxford Exxon podcast Friday morning. I asked him about Earnhardt's death and he told me something I had never known: He was essentially a witness.

Further, following Earnhardt's death, Praytor made his racing son wear the Hans device. Had Earnhardt not perished on that February day in Daytona, Praytor's son wouldn't have been wearing the protective headgear. However, Thomas Praytor was wearing the Hans device when he had a similar crash into a wall on the ARCA series, and he's alive today because of it.

Here's that interview in case you missed it.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wright for his help in producing the audio file.

9. Harper Lee died in Monroeville, Ala., on Friday at the age of 89. We were podcasting when I saw the news break on Twitter. I immediately thought of my mom, Judy McCready, who taught Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in her sophomore English classes at Ruston High School. I asked her to reflect on Lee, her legacy and what made that novel such a transcendent piece of literature. Here's my mom's first contribution to 10 Weekend Thoughts:

"Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of our great American classics, left us last Friday. But we will remember her and be forever grateful for the story she told of the American South, a story of injustice and compassion and human frailty.

But her story is more than just a story. It reminds us, as Gregory Peck said in the movie of the same title, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it.”

Although To Kill a Mockingbird is taught in 70 percent or so of American classrooms, it is not just for teens and pre-teens. The more often an adult reads this book, the more he/she gets from it.

Harper Lee was once asked why she had never written another novel (Go Set a Watchman was published in 2015, after the referenced interview), and her answer was that she had said all she had to say.

No one else has said it as well.”

My note: My mother included her references for this piece, which made me laugh. You can, apparently, take the teacher out of the classroom but you can’t take the classroom out of the teacher. Her references, in case you’re interested, were al.com and CBSNews.com.

10. Here are some links of interest to me (and hopefully to you) for your reading pleasure this week. Have a great one.

Russell Westbrook has replaced LeBron James as the NBA's most athletic player.

Has Westbrook surpassed Kevin Durant? Statistics say he has (and I tend to agree).

The Chicago Cubs opened camp Friday with a World Series-or-bust mindset.

New Cardinals pitcher Mike Leake had a really good reason to wait as long as possible for the Arizona Diamondbacks to make a competitive offer this offseason.

Drinking more coffee may reverse liver damage caused by booze.

Kevin Durant had to talk to himself quite a bit to get back to his MVP level after his foot injury.

The Royals say a World Series title makes them hungry, not complacent.

Twenty-five years later, Scott Norwood is trying to hold his head up high after Super Bowl miss.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was laid to rest this weekend. He'll be missed at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

Miami Marlins hitters are eager to learn from Barry Bonds.

The San Francisco Giants are loaded -- and it's an even-year season.

An underground fire has burned outside St. Louis for six years and it threatens a nuclear waste dump.

University of Oklahoma president David Boren said a decision on Big 12 expansion should come this summer.

Dirk Nowitzki is still enjoying the ride, even as his peers leave the game.

This shouldn't surprise you: Adolph Hitler had a deformed micro-penis.

Apropos of nothing, my video of the week: