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Ole Miss men's basketball released its complete non-conference schedule for the 2016-17 season Thursday. In addition to a trip to the Virgin Islands for the Men's Paradise Jam the weekend before Thanksgiving, the Rebel hoopmen will face off against Virginia Tech and Baylor next season.
The SEC as a whole has recently tried to change its national perception with non-conference scheduling by adding a base number of Power 5 teams to every team's yearly slate. The Big 12-SEC challenge, which pits 10 teams from each conference against one another early-ish in the season, began in 2013, and it's gone some way toward increasing the conference's collective strength of schedule. The Big 12 is the current overall leader in the series, 20-10, and Ole Miss lost to last year's opponent Kansas State, 69-64.
After last season's disastrous Charleston Classic showing, where the Rebs went 1-2 and failed out of the losers bracket, next season Andy Kennedy and friends will shoot off to the Virgin Islands for the Men's Paradise Jam in November. South Carolina won last year's Paradise Jam, ousting a field that included Florida State, Tulsa, DePaul and Hofstra. Besides Ole Miss, the 2016 edition of the tournament includes NC State, Creighton, St. Joseph's and Washington State.
The full non-conference schedule for men's hoops:
- UT-Martin, Nov. 11, Oxford
- UMass, Nov. 14, Oxford
- Paradise Jam, Nov. 18-21, U.S. Virgin Islands
- Montana, Nov. 24, Oxford
- Middle Tennessee State, Nov. 30, Oxford
- Memphis, Dec. 3, Oxford
- Virginia Tech, Dec. 11, Blacksburg, Va.
- Murray State, Dec. 15, Oxford
- Bradley, Dec. 19, Oxford
- South Alabama, Dec. 22, Oxford
- Baylor, Jan. 28, Oxford
Do we have a fancy infographic for you? Why yes, so glad you asked:
Great non-conference slate for the @OleMissMBB Rebels this season. Should be a fun one in The Pavilion! #HottyToddy pic.twitter.com/114YEUvCvo
— Paris Buchanan (@paris_buchanan) June 16, 2016