Everything Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said after the loss to South Carolina

Ole Miss lost to South Carolina 75-59 at home Thursday night. Here is everything Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin had to say to the media.

Opening statement

“I mean, when you play the number two, the number six, the number five, the number fourteen, the number fifteen, when you play those teams, you have to leave it all on the floor. When you have to play your best basketball, the margin of error shrinks. The only way you can make it up is with incredible belief and incredible fight. It is the reason why South Carolina has only lost two games. If we want to be able to beat these teams, we have to be able to play for 40 minutes. I was disappointed by the effort. The lapses felt like we quit in the fourth quarter; that is a reflection of me, I guess, so I have got to look and see why we decided to do that in that space. We needed people to show up, and that wasn’t the case tonight. There is not one player we have in the positive, so everybody on our team was in the negative. Some are worse than others. It is something we are going to have to have short memory because then we get the gift of playing the number seven team in the nation on Sunday.”

You mention belief and fight. Are you surprised that you guys did not have it tonight? 

“Yeah, I am surprised. I mean, last game at home, you have a chance to do something. You have played big teams. I don’t think that they were afraid; I just think we quit at some point. You know, that is what it felt like to me. As a coach, you feel helpless because I can’t sub in and help them. So, you know, the only thing I can do is try and coach them up, but I was not even going to try to give them this big speech because I felt we know how to fight. We are no stranger to competing at a high level. But Starr (Jacobs) has to show up, and we did not have her tonight, so that really hurt us. From a rotational standpoint, Madison (Scott) has to play better. These type of people we are depending on. On a positive note, I was really happy to see Sira (Thienou) come alive because we haven’t had anything from her in about eight games. I thought KK (Deans) fought as she could. Christeen (Iwuala) almost had a double-double. So here’s the thing, again, when you play these types of teams, you have to decide if you are going to give it all you got, and if everybody is going to do it. If not, you are not going to win. This team has beaten teams by 30 and 40, I am not looking for a pat on the back, I thought in the first half we played well, but it took too much of me really having to get out of character to get our team to fight and that is exhausting for a head coach. In the third quarter, I did not think we came out to fight, but in the fourth, we just had no more fight. I just don’t ever want to see that with my team, so that is something I will be addressing tomorrow.” 

In the bench production, in the first half and the second half, what is South Carolina doing to make that difficult in the second half?

“I mean, South Carolina is deep. I don’t know if y’all know this, but everyone on their team is an All-American. All right, so they don’t have a drop-off. You have to withstand their runs, and that’s what I am saying. I thought every time we got in a situation, we didn’t withstand their run. Not because we didn’t want to, we have to figure out just doing it. I hadn’t lost any hope in our team, we have a lot more basketball to go. I expect South Carolina to be a Final Four contender or close to it. You know, they are playing for something too. That is what I am trying to get my team to understand. Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, you don’t have anything to lose.’ Well, they have something to lose, and sometimes you have got to play like you have something to lose. I thought their backs on the wall, they didn’t want to lose to us. If they lost to us, they are trying to fight for the number one seed. Again, this is a team that only had two losses, so there were some things that we can build off of, but there were some things I am going to address.” 

Not to call anyone out for tonight; it seems like it was a team deal not bringing that fight, but who are the players you will need to rely on to bring that fight in the next games?

“Well, I will tell you this: we don’t have a five that is just going to be better than another five. Our strength is in numbers, so our strength is in nine and ten. So, when nine or ten doesn’t show up, it is bad news for us. Luckily, we didn’t get blown out because they have blown teams out. I can show you we didn’t even play well, in my opinion. I couldn’t even play Starr (Jacobs) for about 15 minutes, and we were able to keep it somewhat respectable because there were some people that were fighting, but we need the whole team to fight. Our strength is in numbers.”

Discuss South Carolina women’s basketball on The Insiders Forum!