OXFORD — Juju Murray scored 13.8 points and dished out four assists per game last season at Ole Miss, often serving as the Rebels’ primary ball-handler.

The 5-foot-11, 170-pounder from the Bronx often got hunted by bigger guards, especially in the second half of the Southeastern Conference season, when Ole Miss’ hot start couldn’t hold up enough to get the Rebels to the NCAA Tournament.

When the season ended, Ole Miss jumped into the transfer portal, adding former Virginia Tech guard Sean Pedulla to the mix. Murray didn’t take that addition as an affront. Instead, he embraced the opportunity to play with Pedulla and to get more opportunities off the ball.

One thing Murray didn’t do was consider looking for another landing spot.

“I didn't like, not one time, second guess (whether) I was going to transfer or not,” Murray said. “You know, I gave my trust to (Ole Miss) Coach (Chris) Beard. You know, he put his trust into me, and for somebody to just give me, you know, an opportunity of a lifetime, how I see it, to just come at this level and just basically just give me the keys and just let me do what I do is, you know, you can't go around stuff like that, and you always gotta show respect to those people. And I got a lot of respect for (Beard). So this offseason, I never had a second guess on what I was doing. I already knew I was coming back.”

Murray also went to work on his defense. New Ole Miss assistant Mark Adams, the former Texas Tech coach who is widely considered to be a defensive expert, has been in Murray’s ear over the summer, trying to get Murray to focus on overcoming his lack of size by utilizing his speed and quickness on the defensive end of the floor.

“I never really had a guy to actually, like, sit me down and really tell me — you know, Coach Beard was telling me a lot, too, last year — like Coach Adams has …about just competing on defense, too, you know, just getting stronger, competing, you know, and just be willing to battle.”

The hard work has shown up in Murray’s play, Beard said.

“I’ve been really proud of his approach,” Beard said. "I think last year we put a lot of responsibility on Ju as kind of the primary ball handler, so it’s nice to have some guys that can help Juju in terms of being able to play-make, initiate the offense. So I definitely look forward to Juju having the ball in his hands a lot, but then also putting him in positions where he can score more, which we wanted last year, but he had so much responsibility with the ball in his hands.

“I think that's one of the biggest compliments you can give a veteran player that's already established, already proven that he could get a lot done in the SEC last year — have a guy that we talk about internally about maybe having the best improvement this summer. That's the best compliment you can give an older player when they're already good to begin with.”

Murray played in the NCAA Tournament at St. Peter’s before transferring to Ole Miss. Beard, of course, has coached several teams to the NCAA Tournament, including taking Texas Tech to the national championship game. Their mutual goal, Beard said, is to get back to that field — this time, together.

With that in mind, Murray said he’s working on being a more vocal leader and combining with Pedulla to give the Rebels versatility in the backcourt along with veteran All-SEC guard Matthew Murrell.

“I'm definitely building a big-time relationship with Sean,” Murray said. “Just me and him playing together and practicing, stuff like that, just feeding off each other, you know, at the same time, too, when we play against each other, competing, you know, for whatever it is, which is assists, deals, and stuff like that. Wins.”