Jackson Free Press

Starting this Thursday, Ole Miss begins a 12-game run that will determine its seeding in the SEC Tournament. After playing Auburn and Arkansas, a highly anticipated matchup against John Calipari's top-ranked Kentucky team looms for Andy Kennedy's squad. Ole Miss is ranked 22nd and appears to be the strongest team Kentucky will face in their conference.

The Rebels, though, were not competitive in losses to two elite Big East teams: Villanova and West Virginia. Next Tuesday, they will be expected to lose against the winningest program in college basketball history, the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats, in Lexington. But the course of college basketball is predictably unpredictable.

In fact, it was a seemingly innocuous dinner conversation seven years ago between two perfect strangers—a head coach at Fresno City College and a bottomed-out NBA coach—that has tilted the balance of power in college basketball. Calipari had already passed through a job at the University of Massachusetts and had failed as a head coach for the New York Knicks. He was struggling to return to the sport's elite, as he had done at UMass. Vance Walberg, an ambitious head coach at Fresno City College, was visiting his friend, Hubie Brown, and found an eager student in Calipari. (At the time, Hubie Brown was the coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, and Calipari was coaching the University of Memphis Tigers.)

Though neither coach seems to remember what kind of meal was served, it was their mutual appetite for basketball that sparked an impromptu study session. Walberg explained to me: "I never met John before that introduction. But we instantly had a great relationship with each other because we both love the game and have a passion to get better. I did not go to visit John to show him my offense; I went there to learn."

Calipari quickly turned the tables on his new friend. He became curious about the offense Walberg designed at Fresno's Clovis West High School and developed at Fresno City College. Walberg had conceived the offense to fit the unique abilities of the high school and community college players he drew from the impoverished San Joaquin Valley. In designing the "dribble drive motion," he took the disciplined, slow-paced Princeton offense and turned its principles into the framework for a dynamic and potent offensive system. That style took Calipari's Memphis team from a regular 20-win Conference-USA champion to the brink of a national championship in 2008.

With the dribble-drive-motion offense, Calipari took Memphis to the national stage. Though acknowledged as a brilliant recruiter, Calipari deserves more credit for his flexibility.

"The area where John is further ahead of most is that he had the vision to see how this offense could help him in the long run and he was not afraid of trying it," Walberg explained to me. "Most coaches would not have changed his style like he did."

When I asked Walberg about the offense he designed, he disclaimed the more popular name, "dribble drive motion," preferring the acronym, AASAA. "AASAA means Attack, Attack, Skip, Attack, Attack," he says. "The offense is predicated on attacking the hoop and getting to the free-throw line. You're not going to get to the hoop on the first or second attack on any good team, so you have to be persistent. People have a thought that the dribble drive is a lot of dribbling. It really isn't. It is a lot of attacking and it doesn't consist of just dribble, dribble, dribble."

Tuesday's game might not hinge on how the Rebels stymie Kentucky's attacking offense, though. By failing to score at least 70 points in three of their conference losses, she Rebels' offense has been the problem. In the last three games, though, point guard Chris Warren (16.6 points per game, 3.5 assists per game) has matured into the team's offensive leader. The teams' last two victories have been keyed by Warren's improving range.

Anthony Kennedy has seen progress in his relatively mature team, observing that the offense "is evolving." Ole Miss is primed to hand Kentucky its first loss of the year. Their starters have almost twice as much experience as Kentucky.

As of this printing, Ole Miss is on a two-game winning streak, with double-digit victories over possible NCAA Tournament teams South Carolina and LSU. Unfortunately, holding a late lead has not necessarily portended good things for the Rebels (Tennessee). Warren and the Rebels seem to thrive when down by a few baskets in the late minutes (Southern Miss, UTEP), but counting on a dramatic comeback against the Wildcats would be disastrous.

Though the SEC is underperforming this year, Ole Miss has the ability to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. Or they could be another of the Tournament's first-round casualties. Either way, Tuesday's game in Lexington will mark the upper limit of what they can accomplish.