Mississippi State and Ole Miss were represented on the preseason all-conference teams, as announced by the Southeastern Conference on Monday.
Bulldog guard Josh Hubbard earned first-team honors, while Rebel big man Malik Dia was a third-team selection. Both helped their respective team endure a gauntlet of a conference schedule and appear in the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
Hubbard, the standout guard from Madison, averaged nearly 19 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game in the 2024-25 campaign. He became Mississippi State’s first player to pile up at least 600 points and 100 assists in the same season. His efforts helped the maroon and white compile a 21-13 overall record and a spot in the Big Dance as a No. 8 seed, where the team fell just shy in a round-one matchup against Baylor.
Dia returns to Ole Miss for his second year with the program after finishing third in scoring and leading the Rebels in rebounding last season. He started all 36 games for head coach Chris Beard, averaging 10.8 points and 5.7 rebounds per outing, helping lead the Rebels to a 24-12 record and their second-ever Sweet 16 run in the NCAA Tournament, where the team lost a heartbreaker to Michigan State.
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The full All-SEC teams can be found below:
First Team All-SEC
- Alex Condon – Florida
- Josh Hubbard – Mississippi State
- Otega Oweh – Kentucky
- Tahaad Pettiford – Auburn
- Labaron Philon Jr. – Alabama
Second Team All-SEC
- Nate Ament – Tennessee
- Boogie Fland – Florida
- Ja’Kobi Gillespie – Tennessee
- Thomas Haugh – Florida
- Mark Mitchell – Missouri
Third Team All-SEC
- Malik Dia – Ole Miss
- Aden Holloway – Alabama
- Karter Knox – Arkansas
- Jaland Lowe – Kentucky
- D.J. Wagner – Arkansas
Kentucky guard Otega Oweh was named the preseason SEC Player of the Year. He transferred to Kentucky from Oklahoma ahead of last season and averaged a team-high 16.2 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game for the Wildcats.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss and Mississippi State came in at No. 8 and No. 10, respectively, in the conference’s preseason rankings. As for the first AP Top 25 of the year, neither the Rebels nor the Bulldogs were among the six SEC teams that appeared in the initial poll. Ole Miss did, however, receive 11 top-25 votes, while Mississippi State received three
SEC Preseason Rankings
Ole Miss will make its 2025-26 regular season debut on Nov. 3 when Southeastern Louisiana travels to the SJB Pavilion for a 7 p.m. CT tipoff. Mississippi State will begin the upcoming season with a Nov. 5 matchup against North Alabama in Humphrey Coliseum at 8 p.m. CT.
