Ole Miss women's basketball is in a familiar spot but ready for a different postseason story
For a second straight season the Ole Miss women’s basketball team finished as one of the top four teams in the Southeastern Conference and destined for the NCAA Women’s Tournament.
The thing is this is a story the Rebels have already lived but are ready to keep doing what it has done under head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin — rewrite the script.
After defeating Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Sunday Ole Miss secured its first 11-win SEC season for the first time in 31 years, earning the double-bye to this week’s SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C.
Not having to play a game for five days is the perks of earning the No. 4 seed, but this is not the history Ole Miss (22-7) is making. No, they were in this exact same spot last year but fell to No. 1 Seed South Carolina in the semifinal round.
That is the part of the story that looks destined to be repeated by the Rebels; win its quarterfinal round game and set up a rematch with the No. 1 Gamecocks on Saturday afternoon.
There is plenty of experience on this Ole Miss team, including taking this same South Carolina team to overtime a couple weeks back.
Work to be done before a potential semifinal showdown, but the Rebels are prepared for a longer stay in the tournament this year.
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“Experience, you can’t replace it,” McCuin said on Tuesday. “That was a lot of firsts last year. I know we’ve had a lot of first but we don’t have a lot of firsts in our locker room. We won’t have a lot of first people going to the SEC Tournament. We won’t have a lot of first people going to the NCAA Tournament. I think that makes a difference because we ran up against a team in South Dakota that didn’t have a lot of first and you saw they almost made it to the Elite 8.”
Ole Miss is more seasoned and prepared for this postseason run after having all of its firsts a year ago.
Extended postseason runs in March is the the new normal McCuin wants with this program and it starts with being a regular resident in the upper portion of the SEC Tournament, setting up the NCAA Tournament.
In the latest ESPN Bracketology projection by Charlie Creme Ole Miss is a No. 7 Seed in the Greenville 1 Region. He has the Rebels projected to the Iowa City bracket, playing No. 10 Seed Kansas at the University of Iowa where the Hawkeyes are a No. 2 Seed projected to play No. 15 Seed Jackson State.
“Being here all three years, like I have been, the goal has always been to get better. To improve and to grow,” said forward Madison Scott. “So, definitely, you take good things from last year but you want to build on it. You want to do bigger and better things. The mindset of this team this year has been amazing. Everybody’s hungry. We’re still hungry. We want to do so well for ourselves, for Oxford, for the Oxford community, for our families. We want to do well for everybody. We just want to show what we’re capable of.”
The postseason journey to March Madness begins for Ole Miss on Friday in the second game of the day in the quarterfinal round. They will play either No. 13 Seed Texas A&M, No. 12 Seed Vanderbilt or No. 5 Seed Mississippi State at approximately 1:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
