clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile
Changing the Culture of Ole Miss Athletics The original Air Kiffin shirt is available here

Filed under:

Derrick Millinghaus is coming back to Ole Miss ... but not to play basketball

After a bid to walk on for Andy Kennedy's squad reportedly got vetoed, the former Rebel guard is heading back to Oxford to work on his grades.

By Jeff Gray
Spruce Derden-USA TODAY Sports

Derrick Millinghaus -- you know, the guy who's last-second shot during the 2013 SEC Tourney carried Andy Kennedy to his first trip to the Big Dance -- tweeted Monday that he's re-enrolling at Ole Miss. But he won't be playing ball, at least not in 2015-16.

Millinghaus, who spent last season riding out a transfer year at Southeastern Louisiana, is heading back to Oxford to "just get [his] grades up," according to his Twitter. He reportedly petitioned for a walk-on spot, but Andy Kennedy wasn't feelin that.

At all.

Whether he has a shot in 2016-17 if he gets his grades up is unclear.

AK's shutdown is kind of ironic considering that you could reasonably argue that AK wouldn't still have a job in Oxford if it wasn't for Millinghaus's last-second floater against Mizzou in 2013. Without that, Ole Miss gets bounced from the SEC Tourney and never makes a run in the NCAA Tourney. Kennedy was on thin ice that year, and it's completely possible that he would have been canned.

Millinghaus came out hot the next season (2013-14), starting nine of the first 15 games and playing at least 20 minutes in 12 of those. But his inconsistency and habit for jacking up bad shots meant less and less playing time down the stretch. By the time he requested a transfer after the season, there weren't many Rebel fans that were upset to see him go.

He landed with SELA but, after sitting out a year, announced in January that he was leaving without ever having played a game. There were rumors that he would end up at Southern Miss with his brother, but that never materialized.