'Losing has become abnormal' for Ole Miss women's basketball as it shakes off first SEC loss

For the first time in conference play and the first time in over a month the Ole Miss women’s basketball team is facing a loss and trying to move on from something that is becoming foreign for the program.

Last Sunday’s loss to Alabama in front of one of the largest crowds for an Ole Miss women’s basketball game in recent years was a tough pill to swallow. Head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin was ‘shocked’ and disappointed in how her team played.

These are all characteristics of a program that is turning around and not used to a loss when not long ago defeat was the norm and a win over a Southeastern Conference opponent was a rare thing celebrated as if it was a championship game.

“Losing has become abnormal for Ole Miss women’s basketball,” McCuin said when talking to the media on Wednesday. “The last loss really sucked and we hadn’t lost since sometime in December so kind of forgot how that felt. I do think that it was probably perfect timing for us going into a bye week. Even though, who wants to lose (going into a bye)? There’s two times you don’t want to lose, Christmas and going into a bye week because you have to sit on it the whole time.”

Ole Miss (16-3, 5-1 SEC) had its bye week this week and has been sitting on the loss to the Crimson Tide.

While waiting to resume its schedule this weekend. The week off is good as the team has rested and refocused while McCuin hit the recruiting trail earlier in the week.

The extended layoff between games has also allowed for McCuin to continue to drill home the importance of last Sunday’s loss. When Ole Miss lost on the road at Oklahoma last month McCuin used the same tactic she is using this week.

“When we lost to Oklahoma we had exams that week and I probably drugged that thing out the whole week and I’m not done talking about Alabama, either,” McCuin said. “We started talking about it (on Tuesday) and I came off the road recruiting to talk about it. We will continue to use the film and learn from a lot of the things that we got exposed on. We hadn’t been exposed a lot.”

McCuin called Sunday’s game a “perfect storm” with a rested Alabama team and the atmosphere inside the SJB Pavilion.

Nearly 4,000 Ole Miss fans came to watch the Rebels, who were off to their best start in SEC play since 2007. A win would have made it the best start in nearly 30 years to conference play, but that did not happen.

Winning is the goal and with consistent winning comes the fans that the program has been missing in the seats for quite some time. Sunday was an example of what can be a regular occurence night-in-and-night-out for Ole Miss.

“I really thought that the crowd and the momentum and everything going on would be a positive for us and it ended up not so much,” McCuin. “It ended up almost, I think, being overwhelming for our team and something we have to get used to.

“(South Carolina head coach) Dawn Staley said, ‘Your players are going to have to get used to a crowd because that’s just not something that is automatic for them.’ She said, ‘Hopefully they continue to come out because your players need to get used to it.’

Ole Miss will begin to turn the page on the Alabama loss and turn its attention to Auburn later this week. The Rebels will travel to Auburn (10-7, 0-5) on Sunday for its first repeat opponent of the SEC schedule.

On Dec. 29 Ole Miss defeated the Tigers 79-47 to open up SEC play.

The game is set to tip off at 4 p.m. CT on SEC Network and part of the ‘We Back Pat’ week.