Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team faces its third SEC team tonight in Ole Miss

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team will play its second Southeastern Conference opponent in three days -- and third this month -- when it faces Ole Miss tonight in the Jack Jones Classic in Southaven, Mississippi.

Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. against the Rebels, who are slated to make a return visit to the Show Me Center next season.

Southeast is coming off an 84-67 loss to Arkansas and lost 65-61 to Missouri, also an SEC member, early in December.

"There's nothing wrong with this. I think these are great games for us," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "They're opportunity games. We have to have the money, and I get that and I'm OK with it. I perfectly understand that. And why not play the best? This is driving distance away, four or five hours away, and then we'll go back over to Ole Miss. The good thing about Ole Miss is they're bringing their team back into the Show Me Center next year. We love these games because of opportunity. This is a good opportunity to play the highest level and see how you stack up. Our guys like that. It doesn't do much for our record, but we can't worry about that. We're just going to get better and hopefully this will prepare us for conference play."

The Redhawks host NAIA Harris-Stowe on Dec. 28 to close out the non-conference slate and open the Ohio Valley Conference portion of their schedule Jan. 1 at Belmont.

Ole Miss enters tonight's contest with a 7-3 record. The Rebels haven't lost on the road or a neutral site yet this season.

Their losses are a 66-65 overtime loss to Charleston Southern to start the season, a 66-54 loss to TCU and an 81-74 loss to Western Kentucky.

They've picked up wins against Creighton, Cincinnati and Oregon.

Guard Stefan Moody leads the team with 14.8 ppg and is 18 of 54 (33.3 percent) from 3-point range on the season. He's a 93 percent free-throw shooter.

LaDarius White, a 6-foot-6 guard, averages 13.6 ppg off the bench. He's a 51.4 percent 3-point shooter (19 of 37). White's coming off a career-high 26 point performance in a 71-68 win against Coastal Carolina. He knocked down 6 of 8 3-point attempts and was perfect in six attempts at the charity stripe.

Guard Jarvis Summers averages 12.1 ppg.

"I know that they're up and down, but they're an SEC-caliber team," Nutt said. "They're going to have that home crowd. They're going to be very tough. They've had some very impressive wins. You look at Cincinnati, Oregon at Oregon -- there's not many people that are going to go to Oregon and win, and then go to Cincinnati, or maybe on a neutral floor, and win. They've had some very, very quality wins, and then at the same time they've had some tough losses. I guess it depends on what Ole Miss team we catch. But I'm more concerned with us getting a little bit better, shooting the ball a little bit better and just guarding a little bit better, especially the 3-point shot."