Ole Miss and head coach Kermit Davis have mutually agreed to part ways, according to an announcement from the Rebels’ basketball program on Friday morning.
Davis, a former longtime coach at Middle Tennessee, had been with Ole Miss for the past five seasons, starting in 2018.
Kermit Davis ends his time with the Rebels with a record of 74-79 in 153 games coached.
Davis held a record of 1-4 against Tennessee during his five years as the head coach. The Volunteers bested Davis’s Rebels in February 2019, January 2020, January 2022, and most recently, this past December 2022. The Rebels’ lone win against Tennessee in the Davis era came in February 2021 as Ole Miss won by a score of 52-50 in Oxford.
While it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Kermit Davis himself, some Tennessee historians and fans will remember that first meeting that Davis had with the Volunteers for a reason different than the game on the court. That infamous February 2019 matchup ended with Ole Miss fans “pelting” the court with trash after Tennessee’s win. Davis had to jump on the PA microphone to request that fans stop that action immediately.
Ole Miss fans are pelting the floor with trash. pic.twitter.com/nR2CDSEdHY
— Nick Suss (@nicksuss) February 28, 2019
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That’s not even the only Ole Miss-Tennessee trash-related incident from the past four years, either. But, obviously, the other part of that story lies with a different sport entirely.
“We thank Coach Davis for his dedication to the Ole Miss basketball program and our student-athletes,” Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics Keith Carter said via an Ole Miss press release. “No one wanted to bring a title home to Mississippi more than him, and we appreciate the passion for that goal that he shared with our team every day. As he has throughout his career, Coach Davis worked tirelessly to produce a winner, and we wish him, Betty and his family the very best in the future.”
Davis led the Rebels to a 10-18 record and a 2-13 mark in SEC playing during the 2022-2023 season, prior to him parting ways with the Ole Miss basketball program.
Ole Miss has announced that a national search to find the Rebels’ next head coach is officially underway.
Prior to his time at Ole Miss, Davis spent 16 years with Middle Tennessee from 2002 until 2018. Davis was 332-188 in his 16 years at Middle Tennessee and collected six regular-season championships, two conference tournament championships, and three NCAA tournament appearances. Davis’s 15-seed Middle Tennessee squad in the 2015-2016 season was the team that defeated two-seed Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament.
