After an in-season 'identity crisis' Ole Miss women's basketball finding its rhythm again
The follow up season to the historic Sweet 16 run has been a bumpy start for the Ole Miss women’s basketball team but after having to hit the reset but early on things are smoothing out ahead of Southeastern Conference play.
Ole Miss (10-3) travels to Tuscaloosa on Thursday to take on Alabama (13-2) at 6 p.m. CT in what is serving as both program’s SEC opener for the 2023-24 season. Last year the Rebels and Crimson Tide split the pair of regular season meetings with the former edging out the latter for the fourth spot in the SEC standings.
At the onset of the season Ole Miss might have been considered a favorite with what head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin was able to assemble as a roster out of the transfer portal. But five-plus games into the season she had to hit the reset button after KK Deans suffered a season-ending injury.
Since the Michigan game down in the Bahamas in November the Rebels have gone 5-2 with back-to-back losses to Louisville and Southern Mississippi that was followed up by four straight wins to close out non-conference play.
Deans injury created a slight panic for McCuin, who had to essentially start the season over six games in. But things are back “on schedule,” according to the sixth-year Rebels coach.
“I had an identity crisis in my team because we just wanted to score a little bit more,” McCuin said on Tuesday when talking to local media. “That’s just not who we are. We want to score just enough. But as far as defense, that’s something we wear on our shirts. That’s our reputation. That’s what people know us for and so luckily we’ve gone back to that.
Losing a player like Deans who was running the offense for Ole Miss and having to pivot to Madison Scott now playing at the ‘one’ spot and pushing freshmen out onto the floor faster than the plan might have been for them this season is causing McCuin to readjust time frames.
According to McCuin she is now not expecting the Rebels to be playing their best basketball until “mid-February.”
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Ole Miss is finding a grove again after having to re-asses things over a month ago with Scott leading the way.
The senior was away from the team for the Mississippi Valley State game but was back with them in Mobile against South Alabama the following game.
Coming off the loss in Hattiesburg Scott and the rest of the team is finding that comfort level with the new rotations.
“We definitely are starting to find our rhythm,” Scott said. “We still have some things to figure out that will come as we continue to play through conference. The last three-four games we’ve really started to get into a stride and really star to play Ole Miss women’s basketball.
“We had to really first check ourselves after that (Southern Miss game) because it hurt all of us. We felt like we weren’t supposed to lose that game and we did not play the way we needed to play. …We didn’t do what we needed to do so we had to go back to the drawing board and really focus on what Team 49’s identity was going to be.”
The answer should be known after this week. After a mid-week trip to Alabama the Rebels return home to host defending national champion in No. 7 LSU (13-1) on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT.
