After twelve seasons under Billy Kennedy, Ole Miss basketball entered their first head coaching search in over a decade, inevitably landing on Kermit Davis, who was then the head coach at Middle Tennessee. He was brought in after a long tenure with the Blue Raiders, entering Oxford with the hopes of turning around a program that hadn’t accomplished much in recent years.
The Rebels made just two NCAA Tournament appearances during Kennedy’s tenure, more often than not finding themselves relegated to the NIT. Kentucky and Florida dominated the SEC for much of Kennedy’s tenure, and he never could really challenge either of those programs for conference supremacy.