OXFORD, Miss. — Eight University of Mississippi men’s basketball players knelt during the national anthem before their game against Georgia on Saturday, responding to a pro-Confederate rally taking place on campus.

Minutes before tipoff, the teams formed lines for the anthem. As “The Star-Spangled Banner” began, six players from the Rebels took a knee and bowed. Toward the end of the anthem, two teammates joined them.

With the gesture, the Mississippi players joined an array of athletes who have protested racial injustice by taking a knee during the anthem, following an example set in 2016 by Colin Kaepernick, a former N.F.L. quarterback.

The pro-Confederate demonstration was led by out-of-state protesters a few hundred feet from the arena.