Ole Miss men’s basketball head coach Andy Kennedy was arrested early Thursday morning, charged with assault after a cab driver said the coach punched him and shouted racial slurs.
Kennedy, a former assistant and interim head coach at Cincinnati, will coach the Rebels when they play No. 9 Louisville in the SEC/Big East Invitational later Thursday.
“I regret this situation,” Kennedy said in a statement released by Ole Miss. “The focus should be on the players and the game, not on me. I vehemently deny the charges levied against me, and am completely confident that I will be fully exonerated of all charges.”
The complaint filed in Municipal Court alleges that Kennedy assaulted Mohammed Ould Jiddou and “punched victim with a closed fist while shouting racial slurs.” Kennedy was arrested at 1:15 a.m., police documents show. Police also arrested Bill Armstrong, director of operations for the basketball team.
Jiddou, a 25-year-old native of the northwest Africa country of Mauritania, replied: “Good” when asked how he was doing Thursday afternoon. But he declined to answer any other questions when reached at his home in northern Kentucky.
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