Mercer Men’s Basketball Prepped for Showdown with Ole Miss

OXFORD, Miss. (MERCER RELEASE) – For the first time in over three decades, Mercer men’s basketball will take on Mississippi as the Bears and Rebels square off on Sunday afternoon. Tipoff at C.M. “Tad” Smith Coliseum is scheduled for 4 p.m. EST and will be televised by Comcast Sports South.

Mercer (7-4) aims for a season-long three-game winning streak on Sunday while Ole Miss (8-2) is also eying its third-straight win. The game is the first matchup between the teams since Ole Miss posted an 82-64 home win on Dec. 19, 1983.

SCOUTING MISSISSIPPI

The Rebels are also 5-1 at home this year after downing Louisiana-Monroe 75-62 on Wednesday evening at the C.M. “Tad” Smith Coliseum. The team is also 21-2 in its last 23 games at home and 64-3 against non-SEC competition at home over the last eight seasons.

The Rebels return two starters from last year’s team that went 27-9, captured the SEC Tournament Championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament Round of 32. The Rebels were picked to finish seventh in a preseason poll of SEC media.

Senior guard Marshall Henderson leads the team offensively, averaging 18.8 points per game. The 2012-13 CBSSports.com SEC Player of the year and AP SEC Newcomer of the year leads the country in three pointers made per game (4.25). He’s scored 15 or more in seven of Ole Miss’ nine games this season, including a 39-point effort against Oregon.

The Rebels are 21-2 in their last 23 home games and are led by the program’s all-time winningest coach, Andy Kennedy. Kennedy has posted four-straight 20-win seasons at Ole Miss and boasts 181 career wins.

FAST FACTS

Mercer head coach Bob Hoffman is 4-5 versus SEC teams during his tenure at Mercer, including a 4-4 record in road games. The team has won its last two road games against SEC competition, with a win 75-67 over Tennessee in last year’s NIT opener and a 66-59 win over Alabama on Dec. 22, 2012.

Langston Hall needs eight more assists to reach the 500 mark for his career. Jakob Gollon is 28 points short of becoming the 37th member of the Mercer 1,000 point club.

Daniel Coursey moved into the top-10 of Atlantic Sun career leaders in blocks last time out. He passed former Mercer great Calvin Henry on the list and is now ninth with 155. Coursey enters Sunday 18 blocks shy of tying Wesley Duke for Mercer’s career block record (173).

Bud Thomas has collected 10 rebounds in two-straight games and four times in his career. He’s the first Mercer player to have 10 or more boards in consecutive games since Daniel Emerson grabbed 13 and 15 rebounds in the final two games of the 2009-10 season.

Mercer’s 7-4 record solidfies the team’s third-straight year with a non-conference winning record in the regular season. The Bears were 7-6 in ’12-13 and 8-5 in ’11-12. The last time the team had three-straight years of non-conference winning regular seasons was from 1983-86.