Men’s basketball SEC Power Rankings Feb. 12: Vols fall back to pack

Last week: Lost to Missouri Tigers and LSU Tigers

Last rank: 14th

The Ole Miss Rebels remain in this bottom spot of our SEC Power Rankings. And it’s perfect timing as well. The school announced Monday that head coach Andy Kennedy would step down from his role at the end of the year after 12 seasons at the helm.

Now, the Rebels are a program in reflection mode. Kennedy achieved a solid bit of success there, reeling off 11 straight winning seasons and taking them to two NCAA Tournaments. However, there’s not going to be any tournament this year. And that streak of winning seasons is in jeopardy.

Ole Miss’s losing streak is now at five games, and they have also lost seven out of eight. There is hardly anything for them to play for. To be fair, at least they played the Missouri Tigers tough at home. But that’s not nearly enough to fix this year, and they got blown out by their in-state rivals on Saturday.

Right now, despite the No. 9 ranked strength of schedule, these two losses have their record down at 11-14. And they are now outside of the Top 100 of the RPI.

Meanwhile, things aren’t about to get any easier. Their next five games are against Top 60 RPI teams. Four of them are in the Top 35, and three are in the Top 25. So unless they go on some magical run at the end of the year, this team is done. And that’s a big reason why Kennedy is done.