Fatigue, early scoring woes plague Ole Miss in loss at No. 15 Tennessee
Playing three games in six days is a tall order for anyone and for the Ole Miss women’s basketball team fatigued might have caught up to it.
Playing at No. 15 Tennessee on Sunday the Rebels got off to a slow start the first 10 minutes and could never do enough to play catch up from there. The Lady Volunteers picked up the 80-71 win in Knoxville.
Ole Miss (17-8, 8-5 Southeastern Conference) got down by 10 points after scoring only seven points in the opening quarter. That was enough to put them in a hole too deep to get out of as they scored at least 20 points the final three quarters and could never take a lead the entire time.
“I thought the first quarter killed us,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “From an offensive standpoint I feel like we missed so many layups. Most times when we do uncharacteristic stuff like that, most times it comes to do maybe a fatigue factor, a shock factor. Nevertheless I thought that was the deciding factor of the game.”
The Rebels missed 18 of their 26 layup attempts.
There were times when they got back to within three points in the third quarter but every time Ole Miss got close the Volunteers (19-6, 6-6) had an answer, pulling back out to a double-digit lead. The closest the Rebels could get in the fourth quarter was six points with 40 seconds left.
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A critical part of their offense is the defense setting up transition points but Ole Miss was also uncharacteristic in that aspect, too. Tennessee committed 20 turnovers but the Rebels scored only four points off them.
Meanwhile the Volunteers 24 points off 19 turnovers by the Rebels.
“When we got the turnovers, if we didn’t have a layup we didn’t try to score right away,” McCuin said. “We wanted to use the clock. If I see them again, which, I don’t mind if I see them again, we would probably approach that a little bit differently because we were super-aggressive in the second, third and fourth quarters. …If I could do it again I probably would have allowed them to be a little bit more free.”
McCuin also went back to the fact it was her team’s third game in six days and that fatigued was taking its toll down the stretch. So she did not press the issue in transition despite trailing by double figures most of the final 20 minutes.
KK Deans led Ole Miss with 22 points followed by Tameiya Sadler’s 14 points. Kennedy Todd-Williams scored 11 points and Madison Scott scored 10 points.
