By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
May 7, 2004
If Ole Miss basketball were a potential investment, head coach Rod Barnes has advice for consumers buy while it's down.
Barnes, who spoke to about 50 Ole Miss supporters at a Meridian Rebel Club meeting on Thursday at Northwood Country Club, said he recently began trading on the stock market.
"I asked my financial advisor, 'What happens when your stock goes down?'," Barnes said at the gathering. "He said, 'Just keep investing, because it'll all even out. And when it changes, you're going to profit even more.'"
Such, Barnes confidently told the supporters, is the case with the Rebels program. After two losing seasons and despite the losses of senior standouts Justin Reed and Aaron Harper, Barnes insists that the worst is over in Oxford.
"This is the best group of kids we've had since we went to the (NCAA) tournament," said Barnes, whose Rebels last tasted post-season action in 2002. "We'll be back to where we were three or four years ago. I think Justin Reed and Aaron Harper brought a lot of excitement, but it became a two-man show. I am convinced we have a good basketball team."
If wrong, Barnes may pay for his miscalculation with his job. Near the end of the Rebels' recent 13-15 campaign, Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone said Barnes would be given one more year, but made no assurances beyond that.
But after a season-ending 70-50 loss to Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference tournament on March 11, Barnes hit the ground running. Assistant coach Wayne Brent resigned five days into the offseason, and he was replaced on April 22 by Tracy Dildy as the Rebels' new recruiting specialist. Dildy spent two years at Auburn until head coach Cliff Ellis was fired, and brought with him to Oxford freshman center Dwayne Curtis, whose transfer to Ole Miss was announced Thursday.
The 6-foot-9, 235-pound Curtis will sit out the 2004-05 season under NCAA rules, but Barnes said the Chicago native is part of a larger picture of recruiting success. With juco center Jeremy Parnell on board and pending another mystery commitment whom Barnes would not name, the size-strapped Rebels have improved their height problems.
"Just a few months ago, we didn't have any guys who were 6-foot-9," Barnes said at the meeting. "Now we have three. The substance, determination and hunger are back in our program."
Barnes returned several times to the investment theme during his speech, and said just as in the business world, certain written and unwritten rules govern college basketball.
"One of the rules that my financial advisor told me was to never watch the market," Barnes said. "But that's one rule we're going to break. Over the next six months, just watch what happens with our recruiting."