Mississippi parts ways with men's basketball coach Kermit Davis after another losing season
OXFORD, Miss. — For the first time in his tenure, Mississippi athletics director Keith Carter will hire a head coach to lead the program for which he once played.
Mississippi mutually agreed to part ways with men's basketball coach Kermit Davis on Friday after five seasons at the helm. Win Case will be the Rebels' interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
This season under Davis, the Rebels have their worst winning percentage since 1994-95, going 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.
The Rebels have one of 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, Mississippi 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. Mississippi 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.
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"We thank Coach Davis for his dedication to the Ole Miss basketball program and our student-athletes," Carter said in a 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."
The team's deficiencies were made worse by player unavailability. Point guard Daeshun Ruffin, who figured to be the Rebels' No. 2 player in 2022-23, struggled to return from a knee injury and missed games because of 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 with injury.
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 Mississippi to the NCAA Tournament as an 8-seed, winning 10 SEC games and garnering conference coach of the year honors. It looked like the beginning of something special, but the Rebels never got back to the tournament under Davis, a Mississippi State alumnus.
The Rebels went 6-12 in SEC play during the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season. A year later, they won 10 SEC games but had to settle for the NIT and exited in the first round. 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 that Mississippi 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 Mississippi basketball history.
The next head coach will have to decide how much of a roster rebuild is needed.