Ole Miss Basketball: Grove Grinder, What Goes Up Must Come Down

While there may be many Ole Miss basketball fans who aren’t familiar with Blood, Sweat and Tears what they sang resonates with all Rebels.

It isn’t hard for many Ole Miss basketball fans to have concerns over what we watched Tuesday night in Tuscaloosa. I will be the first to admit the No.20 Rebels flopped against a very good Alabama team which had a chip on their shoulder and the SEC officiating in the game didn’t help the situation. Actually the Ole Miss/Bama game should be one which SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey should look at very closely and fix the broken parts.

In fact Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork should make sure of it. Less than 30 minutes before tipoff there was mouthing by both sides and Bama approached the Ole Miss bench talking trash. While no punches were thrown there was pushing and shoving which carried into the game itself. There was clearly a set intention by SEC officials to make Ole Miss pay for what Bama instigated on their own home floor. Ole Miss senior Terence Davis fouled out very early in the second half and the rout was on.

Remember When

Ole Miss Rebels

So we get to the point of the story for some Ole Miss Rebels fans and what we have seen over the years. This Ole Miss basketball team was virtually dismissed in the preseason but has risen to No.20 and are in scenario where they must beat the No.24 Iowa State Cyclones this Saturday to stay in the Top25. A 21 point loss to Bama definitely didn’t help matters.

Besides just happening to be listening to a classic rock station this morning and hearing the lyrics to the awesome Blood, Sweat and Tears song ‘Spinning Wheel’ I was at the time thinking about the OHT preview for the No.20 Rebels SEC/Big12 Challenge this Saturday. As the first line of the classic begins, “What goes up must come down.”

We’ve all seen it before. Just when a Ole Miss team believes we have a golden path then the gold turns to gravel and then quicksand for most of us. There is no doubt in my 53 years I have seen the rise and the ultimate fall of being a Ole Miss Rebels fan. We all can relate but all you have to do is look back at Ole Miss football.

Obvious Bias

We were building a program and though it may have been on the fringes of the NCAA’s interpretation of what is legal and not legal we peed in few SEC Wheaties when we beat Bama two consecutive seasons in football and if Nick ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy in the SEC. However, what is done is done and we are forced to move on much like the SEC road game Tuesday night in Tuscaloosa.

As I recall one very obvious ‘BAMA’ fan stating, “Are you going to let the whole game ride on one bad call?” Well, no one would dare say Bama had the right of SEC officials in a game. We watched it in football this past season, we watched it in basketball Tuesday night. Do we have to watch it in 2019 from the Tide’s baseball team as well?

So while we await the SEC/Big12 Challenge in Ole Miss college basketball, we are left with one final thought. Will this be the game where Ole Miss plays the ‘blood, sweat and tears?’ Or is this the game where Ole Miss basketball is the ‘spinning wheel?’ We wait for Saturday and we will finally find out. Good luck to coach Kermit Davis and the No.20 Rebels this Saturday. Hotty Toddy!