{"id":13406,"date":"2025-06-25T11:47:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T11:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13406\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T11:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T11:47:17","slug":"malik-dia-embraces-leadership-role-in-ole-miss-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13406\/","title":{"rendered":"Malik Dia embraces leadership role in Ole Miss return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malik Dia officially announced his return to Ole Miss basketball<\/a><\/strong> the same day the Rebels secured their first transfer commitment for next season.<\/p>\n

Third-year head coach Chris Beard and staff went on to build out a roster of three returners, eight transfer and three Top 100 recruits.\u00a0But retaining Dia, who had options in the portal and professionally, was inarguably one of the off-season\u2019s biggest developments. <\/p>\n

The former Belmont and Vanderbilt transfer started all 36 games in his debut as a Rebel and averaged 10.8 points and 5.7 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of shocking, but it\u2019s kind of the way it is,\u201d Dia said of the remade Ole Miss roster<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cMarch or April when the season was over, coach Beard brought me into his office and basically said, \u2018It\u2019s time to raise the level coming back as a returner.\u2019 There\u2019s just another level I had to take it with maturity and learning from the seniors and the guys from last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, I\u2019m a work in progress, but I\u2019m just trying to stack days every single day and be a good leader for these guys. Understanding what it takes to win at the level that we do. Not only that, keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ole Miss last season won 24 games. <\/p>\n

The Rebels matched the program\u2019s greatest-ever single-season accomplishment in reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.\u00a0Dia, sophomore Eduardo Klafke, now-scholarshipped guard Zach Day and walk-on Max Smith are back. <\/p>\n

The Rebels\u2019 transfer class was ranked Top 20 in the country by On3.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dia averaged 24.3 minutes in Ole Miss\u2019 three NCAA Tournament games and scored 11 against Michigan State. He shot 64 percent from the floor this season, including 35 percent from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done an unbelievable job changing the direction of Ole Miss basketball,\u201d Dia said after the Sweet 16 loss to the Spartans. \u201cI know we\u2019re not a big brand like Kentucky, Duke or Michigan State, but what we\u2019ve done this year with coach Beard, he\u2019s changed the program.\u00a0Not just him, but these players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The included Ole Miss basketball practice photos were provided by Ole Miss Athletics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Augusto Cassia<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Patton Pinkins<\/strong><\/p>\n

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James Scott<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Corey Chest<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Kezza Giffa<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zach Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hobert Grayson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Niko Bundalo<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Malik Dia officially announced his return to Ole Miss basketball the same day the Rebels secured their first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1712,1713,1317,1337,1338,1714,1715,1716,1717,1718,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-13406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chris-beard","10":"tag-malik-dia-22-ensworth","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaabasketball","14":"tag-ole-miss","15":"tag-ole-miss-basketball","16":"tag-ole-miss-rebels","17":"tag-ole-miss-rebels-basketball","18":"tag-regwall","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114743846268035474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}