OXFORD – For the first time since the 2018-19 season, the Ole Miss men’s basketball team will be part of March Madness.

The Rebels earned a berth in the 2025 NCAA Tournament Sunday as a No. 6 seed and will play No. 11 seed San Diego State or North Carolina in the first round of the Milwaukee Regional. It is the 10th tournament bid in program history and the first under second-year head coach Chris Beard. Ole Miss is the fourth Division I program Beard has taken to the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m just really happy for the guys, to be in the NCAA Tournament year two,” Rebels coach Chris Beard said at a team watch party. “I think about those seniors, like Matt and Jaemyn, I’m just really happy for the players.”

Nine of Ole Miss’ tournament appearances have come since 1997. The most recent prior to this year was under Kermit Davis in his first season. The Rebels won a combined 25 games in Davis’ final two seasons, however, and Davis was fired toward the end of the 2022-23 season.

Ole Miss won 20 games in Beard’s first season but missed the NCAA Tournament and declined an NIT bid. The return of senior guards Matthew Murrell and Jaylen Murray and senior forward Jaemyn Brakefield and a strong transfer portal class anchored by former Virginia Tech guard Sean Pedulla put the Rebels at No. 24 in the preseason AP Poll.

“There hasn’t been a day this year that I haven’t thought about those two guys and not wanting to let them down,” Beard said of Murrell and Brakefield. “Anything but playing in this tournament wouldn’t be what we all set out to be. So, yeah, I’m really happy for Matt and Jaemyn today. No doubt about it.”

Despite a pair of three-game losing streaks this season, Ole Miss rose to as high as No. 16 in the poll and won two games against top-five foes – at No. 4 Alabama in January and on Senior Night against No. 4 Tennessee in March – in the same season for the first time in program history. The Rebels also defeated tournament-bound Louisville by 23 points in early December.

The Rebels entered this year’s SEC Tournament as the No. 8 seed and defeated No. 9 seed Arkansas on a game-winning 3-pointer from Pedulla before falling to top-seeded Auburn in the quarterfinals.

“We want to be us. We had a good season. We earned the high seed that we got, so we don’t want to show up and try to be somebody we’re not,” Beard said. “And secondly, we want to enjoy the ride, another week with the team, great competition, so yeah, be us and smell the roses.”