No. 18 Ole Miss heads to North Carolina State with new roles in hand as the season flips to December
The women’s college basketball season is entering its second month and for No. 18 Ole Miss things are ahead of schedule, in some ways, according to head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin.
Sitting at 5-2 and also No. 19 in the NET rankings, the Rebels have played three Power 4 programs and gone 1-2 against them. A blowout win over Boston College in the Bahamas last week the lone victory.
Still, a two-point loss to then No. 3 USC and then a 13-point loss to No. 2 UConn did not cause McCuin to leave those games empty handed.
As Ole Miss travels to Raleigh to take on North Carolina State (4-3) on Thursday as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge, McCuin feels more prepared because of the November schedule.
“We’re ahead because we’ve played three P4 teams,” McCuin said on Tuesday. “So, we got exposed and we got a chance to kind of look and see the things that we’re good at and the things that we’re not so good at.
“I learned too much (about the team) to just say in this setting, but I am learning about our team and they’re learning about each other and coaches are learning about the team and everyone’s learning about me. So, It’s a teaching and a learning and an exploration grounds for Team 50 right now.”
For the first time this season McCuin sat her team down and handed out what roles what players will have moving forward this year. With a month before Ole Miss opens SEC play at Auburn, it was time for her to have those difficult talks with the team.
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Through November McCuin was emptying her bench and even at times going a full quarter without handing out much coaching and letting the five players on the court figure things out. With a lot of new faces on the team the first month was about getting film on them and also see how they react in certain situations.
With all the data and statistics in hand, McCuin is now mapping out the game plan for the final four months of the 2024-25 campaign.
“Numbers don’t lie so we back it up, statistically,” McCuin said of those talks. “That way there are no emotions. Most times they don’t disagree. In our roles we tell them these are the things we need them to do and these are the things you need to stay away from and most times they agree. Because we’ve already showed them in film what they’re not good at. They’re either going buy in or they’re not and that is the ownership that they have to take as a team.”
Ole Miss gets an opportunity for a good NET road win at N.C. State with the Wolfpack currently No. 31, though ESPN’s matchup predictor gives the Rebels a less than 19 percent chance to win.
