With less than three weeks away from the Southeastern Conference Basketball Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Mississippi State find similar roads to navigate. However, on one side of the state, one program is excited about the season to this date, while the other is disappointed. Ole Miss and Mississippi State are NCAA Tournament teams, according to Joe Lunardi at ESPN.com, but one had dreams of competing for the Southeastern Conference, while the other wanted to see how the first year of a new Head Coach would take them.

Ole Miss took the first game of the year a few weeks ago and will go for the season sweep of Mississippi State on Wednesday night in Starkville. For the Rebels, a chance at sweeping your biggest rival in year one of the Chris Beard era would provide Ole Miss Basketball with an added advantage over Mississippi State heading into year three of the Chris Jans era in Starkville.

For Mississippi State, being swept by Ole Miss seemed unimaginable heading into the 2023-2024 season, but the Bulldogs have been one of the most challenging teams to figure out this season. One second, the Bulldogs are channeling the Hump Magic and beating Tennessee and Auburn; the next, they’re losing at home to Southern Univeristy and allowing Arkansas to take them to the wire. Mississippi State has also been bitten by the injury bug all season, rarely playing at full strength.

From a matchup perspective, using the first meeting as a guide, fans across Mississippi can expect to see a physical entire forty matchup between these two hated rivals. Every possession will matter on Wednesday night; Mississippi State and Ole Miss will need guys to step up to etch their names in the history books of this historic rivalry.

Prediction: Mississippi State rides the energy of the Hump to secure the season split with Ole Miss setting up a potential matchup in the 2024 Southeastern Conference Tournament with Ole Miss. Ugly, but Mississippi State finds a way to win with defense 65-60 over Ole Miss on Wednesday night.

Mississippi State and Ole Miss have the late tip-off on ESPN2 at 8:00.