Entering his fourth season as an assistant coach at Ole Miss, Torrey Ward has been instrumental in the Rebels’ rise to prominence in the Southeastern Conference.

Ward has helped Ole Miss to three straight winning seasons, including postseason berths in 2007 and 2008. The Rebels claimed the SEC Western Division title in 2007 and advanced to the NIT semifinals in Madison Square Garden the following year, racking up 24 wins, the second-most in school history.

Working with the Rebel backcourt, he has tutored All-SEC guards Clarence Sanders, Todd Abernethy, David Huertas and 2009 SEC Freshman of the Year Terrico White, while helping Chris Warren become one of the top point guards in the country. Ward is also heavily involved in recruiting and has helped bring some of the nation’s top basketball talent to Oxford.

Ward, who joined Andy Kennedy’s Ole Miss staff on April 21, 2006, has strong ties with several Rebel staff members. He was a four-year letterman at UAB, where he was a pupil under then-assistant coach Kennedy and a teammate of current Ole Miss Coordinator of Basketball Operations Bill Armstrong.

Before arriving in Oxford, Ward spent three seasons on the Jacksonville State staff and coached alongside current Ole Miss assistant Michael White there during the 2003-04 campaign. After working as a volunteer coach that year, Ward served as an assistant for two seasons at JSU.

In 2005-06, Ward helped the Gamecocks, a preseason 10th-place pick in the Ohio Valley Conference, win 10 of their final 13 games to finish fourth in the league standings and reach the semifinals of the OVC Tournament. Ward assisted with recruiting and administrative duties for JSU.

Before entering the coaching ranks, Ward played professionally in the Chinese Basketball Association for the Shanghai Sharks, where he was a teammate of the NBA’s Yao Ming. As a member of the Shandong in 2002, Ward helped the Bulls win the conference championship before falling in the CBA finals. He finished fourth in the league in scoring and also won the league's slam dunk contest.

A Birmingham native, Ward competed in 110 games with 74 starts and scored almost 800 points during his UAB career (1997-2000). He was voted as the Conference USA Runner-up Defensive Player of the Year to Kenyon Martin and earned C-USA Player of the Week three different times as a Blazer.

As a junior, Ward helped the Blazers to a 22-10 record, a Divisional Championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. He graduated from UAB in 2001 with a degree in justice sciences.

Born July 7, 1978, Ward played his high school basketball at Birmingham's Phillips High School, where he averaged 19.5 points and 7.5 rebounds as a senior. He won the ASHAA Final Four Slam Dunk Championship as a senior in 1996 and was a member of Phillips' Alabama Class 5A state runner-up team in 1994-95.