OXFORD, miss. – It was a very busy offseason for Chris Barba and their staff as they prepare for their second year at Oxford, but the hard work in the recruiting process pays off as the 2024-25 program be a lady The men’s basketball roster has been established.
Sixteen student-athletes will represent Ole Miss in the 115th season of men’s basketball, highlighted by their wealth of experience, scoring ability and positional flexibility. The roster includes 12 players with prior college experience, with more than 900 games played, more than 500 starts, more than 9,000 career points scored and more than 900 career three-pointers among the group.
The show welcomes six returnees from a season ago, as well as Jaemyn BrakefieldCam Brent, TJ Caldwell, Robert CowherdJaylen Murray and Matthew Murrell will take the floor once again for Ole Miss.
Returning for his fourth year with the Rebels, Brakefield has proven to be a mainstay in the starting lineup, making 88 career starts for Ole Miss. A forward with great shooting ability to space the floor, the Jackson, Mississippi, native became the 43rd player in school history to join the 1,000-point club at the end of last season.
After spending the 2022-23 season with the team, Brent saw his first action last year after playing in six games. The guard from Jackson, Miss. He closed the regular season with six minutes against Texas A&M, scoring his first collegiate point and adding an assist and a steal.
Caldwell, a member of the 2022 recruiting class, will begin his third season at Oxford after gaining plenty of experience as a freshman. In 63 career games with the Rebels, the point guard scored 323 points, grabbed 125 rebounds and dished out 67 assists.
Cowherd joins Caldwell in the high school class of 2022 and returns as a sophomore after redshirting his freshman season. The six foot four inch guard Georgia He appeared in 10 games for the Rebels last year, showing off his shooting ability and intense defensive motor.
Murray, one of three starters from a year ago returning to the team, brings his flashy offensive game to the program for a second year. The New York native started all 32 games for Ole Miss at point guard in 2023-24, finishing third on the team in scoring with 13.8 points per game and maintained a 2.40 assist-to-turnover ratio, the fourth best mark in the second.
Returning for his fifth season with Ole Miss, Murrell will be one of the best players not only in the SEC, but in all of college basketball in 2024-25. the guard of MemphisTennessee ranks 16th in program history with 1,444 career points for the Rebels and fifth in career three-pointers made with 218. He earned Second Team All-SEC and NABC Second Team All-District honors the last season.
The program welcomes six new transfers to the team through the transfer portal, including von barnes, Yes, from Benson, Mikeal Brown-Jones, David Davis, Malik heand Sean Pedulla. The highly touted group has been ranked as the No. 14 transfer class in the country by both On3 and 247Sports.
Sam’s guard houston, Barnes averaged 13.5 points and 3.5 rebounds last year, highlighted by a 21-point performance against Ole Miss in the Tad Pad game. The second-leading scorer on a team that won 21 games last year, the Memphis, Tennessee, native spent his first two college seasons at south texaswhere he led the team in scoring as a sophomore.
Entering his fifth year of college basketball, Benson joins the program after playing last season at hampton, where he averaged 7.1 points and 5.3 rebounds in just over 15 minutes per game. Leading the team in blocks last season with 46, he looks to return his defensive skills to the SEC after spending three years with South Carolina.
Brown-Jones, another fifth-year senior, is coming off a first-team all-conference season in Greensboro University where he led the team and ranked second in the SoCon in scoring with a clip of 18.9 per game. He also led UNCG and was sixth in the conference with an average of 7.5 rebounds per game. Brown-Jones was ranked as the No. 34 player in the transfer portal and the No. 8 power forward by On3.
Davis, one of five Ole Miss roster members with more than 1,000 career points, spent his first two seasons at louisville before moving on Seton Hall for the previous two. Davis, a key starter in both programs, recently helped lead Seton Hall to an NIT championship, earning a spot on the all-tournament team after averaging 16.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game . 247Sports ranked him as the No. 63 transfer player in the country and Rivals ranked him as the No. 64 player.
An athletic forward, Dia spent last season in belmont where he averaged 16.9 points and led the team in rebounds with 193, all while averaging just over 23 minutes per game. His defensive skills shined last year when he had 27 steals and blocked 26 shots. He previously spent his first season with Vanderbiltbut he joins Ole Miss as the No. 15 transfer player in the country according to Rivals.
A key member of Virginia Tech Since his freshman season, Pedulla comes to Ole Miss with over 100 games played, over 1,200 career points and over 300 assists in three seasons. The guard led the Hokies in scoring with 16.4 points per game last year and was named to the All-ACC third team. Pedulla was ranked the No. 38 player in the country by Rivals, and the No. 46 player by 247Sports.
A trio of freshmen and a preferred walk-on round out the Ole Miss roster.
Listed as the second-highest recruit in program history by 247Sports, John was He comes to Oxford from Overtime Elite, where he averaged 10.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game as a senior. The 7’2″ forward became the second Ole Miss recruit in the last four years to earn a spot in the prestigious McDonald’s All-American game, where he showed the nation why he was ranked 54th overall both from On3 and ESPN in the 2024 class.
Eduardo Klafke is preparing for his first full season with the program, after spending last spring training with the team as an early enrollee at Ole Miss. After training with the prestigious NBA Academy Latin America, Klafke was ranked the No. 120 player in On3’s 2024 class, and has demonstrated elite shooting ability and basketball IQ. The 6’5″ Brazilian guard comes from a basketball family, as his father Rogerio Klafke played for the Brazilian national team in the 1996 Olympics and the 1994, 1998 and 2002 FIBA World Cup.
A Midland guard, TexasZach Day averaged 24 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists as a senior at Midland Christian last year, where he helped lead his team to a state championship.
Top seed Max Smith averaged 24 points per game while in high school, but recently earned his degree from Ole Miss after arriving at Oxford as a member of the class of 2020.
Release courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics
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JERSEY NUMBERS:
#0 Malik Dia
#1 Mikeal Brown-Jones
#2TJ Caldwell
#3 Sean Pedula
#4 Jaemyn Brakefield
#5 Jaylen Murray
#6 Robert Cowboy
#7 Vom Barnes
#8 Eduardo Klafke
#10 John was
#11 Matthew Murrell
#14 Dre Davis
#21 Yes, by Benson
#22 Max Smith
#31 Zach’s Day
#55 Cam Brent