McPhee-McCuin, Ole Miss crushed the portal. Now they’re ready to make more history.
Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin signed one of the top transfer classes in the country over the off-season.
Among the headliners was KK Deans, a 5-foot-8 guard, and Florida’s leading scorer last season.
Dean has one season of eligibility remaining. She’s fresh off a season in which she averaged 14.1 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists. She’s posted at least 13.7 points in each of the last three seasons.
More importantly for Ole Miss, Dean made 2.3 threes per game. Her 38.3 percent shooting from distance would have the best of all Rebel regulars over their history-making NCAA Tournament run.
“KK is a mini version of me,” McPhee-McCuin said Thursday, during the Rebels’ turn at SEC Tipoff ’24. “Myah (Taylor) was a little different. Myah was very feisty, knew the Southeastern Conference, understood what it took. Her leadership was just something that we needed at the time.
“The addition of Kirsten, what that has done is given us an opportunity to say, ‘Man, we really like what Myah did, but now we want a little bit more scoring, we want a little bit more competitiveness on the offensive end.’ We struggled from the perimeter. Sometimes we lost a couple games by single-digit points. That’s what she brings.
“She’s an ultimate competitor, and this is her last lap.”
Portal success at isn’t anything new for McPhee-McCuin, especially over the last few seasons.
If anything, she’s unabashedly built a transfer-heavy program, and the results speak for themselves.
Ole Miss finished 25-9 (11-5 SEC) last season and reached the Sweet Sixteen for the 11th time in school history. Her Rebels, this preseason, found themselves ranked in the AP Top 15 — a first for Ole Miss in nearly 30 years.
Other transfer brought in were, among others, UNC’s Kennedy Todd-Williams, a second-team All-ACC selection last season. Todd-Williams and veteran Ole Miss forward Madison Scott were the Rebels’ player representatives in Birmingham.
“I think all around being that two-way player I know I can be,” Todd-Williams said of her expectations for the season ahead. She started all 33 games for the Tar Heels and was second on the team in scoring (13.4 ppg) and minutes (32.0).
“Coach is going to put me in really good positions to assert myself. We have a really strong team. Really talented team. To use my leadership and help with the team.”
McPhee-McCuin added, “Kennedy Todd-Williams was someone that fell into our lap. When she went into the transfer portal, what’s interesting is her circle reached out to us first. I don’t know that we would have even tried to recruit her because we did not have any connection with her.
“The connection was they saw us versus Stanford (in the NCAA Tournament). Toddy was looking for another opportunity. After talking with her and spending some time with her, we knew it was a match made in heaven.
“She’s going to be able to impact us on both ends of the floor immediately. The same with KK Deans.”
