Matt Insell has a variety of numbers to select.
The Ole Miss second-year women’s basketball coach can try nine, which represents the number of players who have scored in double figures in his team’s first three games this season.
Insell, the former assistant coach to Matthew Mitchell at Kentucky, also can try 21 or 14. Those numbers reflect the low marks for turnovers his team has forced and steals his squad has made in victories against Grambling, Mississippi Valley State, and Southern.
To complicate matters, you could factor in 43.6 percent, which is the highest shooting percentage from the field any of the three opponents have had against the Rebels.
Instead of taking those defensive numbers individually, Insell would prefer to take them as a package deal. After all, he admits Ole Miss wants its games and its practices to be “wild,” so he expects numbers like the ones listed above to happen every game, even if the Rebels will rely on a young group to make them happen.
“We want to make you take a quick shot because we feel it gets people out of their comfort zone,” Insell said. “That is what the defense was designed around at Kentucky. That is what we did at Kentucky, and that is what we’re doing here (this season) with more depth).”
Ole Miss (3-0) will try to follow that game plan at 3 p.m. today when it plays host to Middle Tennessee State (1-2) at Tad Smith Coliseum. The game will make history as Insell and MTSU coach Rick Insell will be the first father-son to coach opposing teams in a Division I women’s basketball game.
Matt Insell said that storyline will be a hot topic of conversation at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when family members discuss who claimed bragging rights. Insell joked that if Ole Miss wins his family members will chastise him for getting help from the officials. If he loses, he said his family members will remind him about it as many times as they can.
“I have to figure out a way to win this one so I don’t hear about it all December,” Insell said.
Aside from the family drama, Insell knows MTSU will offer his team its first true test of the regular season. Even though MTSU has lost to Arizona State and Arkansas and beaten Miami, it is a perennial NCAA tournament team that figures to be one of the top teams in Conference USA this season. That’s why Insell wanted to schedule this game so early to test a lineup that has featured three newcomers — Toree Thompson, Erika Sisk, and Shandricka Sessom — in the starting lineup. The Rebels also are receiving contributions from newcomers Kiara Golden, A’Queen Hayes, and Kelsey Briggs to complement the return of Tia Faleru. The senior forward has scored in double figures in all three games and has two double-doubles. Insell said she is playing “with a chip on her shoulder” after the Southeastern Conference coaches and media didn’t select her to the preseason all-league teams.
“I don’t blame her because she is the leading returning scorer and the leading returning rebounder in our league,” Insell said. “She feels a little disrespected, so she is going out every day in practice and performing and taking her game to new heights.”
Insell said Faleru talked to WNBA players and others who are playing professionally about how she can approach the game and remain more focused. He said those conversations have enabled Faleru to have a better mind-set on the court so she can consistently be a Dennis Rodman type of player for the Rebels. Rodman, a longtime NBA veteran, made a career as an active player who was a top-notch defender and someone who wreaked havoc as a rebounder. Insell said Faleru has the same qualities in that she is tough to check on the low block because she is so quick and athletic.
Those qualities mirror the team Insell has assembled. The Rebels have played at least 12 players in all three games, and while Insell acknowledges that the level of competition isn’t near what the team will face in the SEC, he said the games have been great tests to help him implement the attitude and the energy level he wants so his team will be able to dictate tempo.
“I am real excited about where we are in the process with this young basketball team having so many newcomers on the roster,” Insell said. “There are a couple of ways it could have went. We could have struggled a lot, but the first two games we dominated from start to finish. Southern was a little better team that matched up a little better with us. It was something I was concerned about having a young team, but we forced them to turn the ball over and we forced them into taking quick shots.”
Ole Miss forced 21 turnovers and had 14 steals in its 91-68 victory Thursday. It forced 46 turnovers and had 23 steals in a 91-38 victory against MVSU and forced 25 turnovers and had 18 steals in a 92-67 victory against Grambling.
Insell knows his team will give up backdoor layups in half-court sets and layups in transition when his team presses. He said those are byproducts of what he hopes will be an frenetic pace in which the Rebels are hawking the ball and not giving opponents any time to settle down and think about what they’re doing. If Ole Miss plays like that, Insell should continue to have his choice of numbers that best reflect his team’s defensive prowess. That style of play also could help him win bragging rights today that will help him next week and next month when he celebrates the holidays with his family.
“I tell our players every game it is not about who we are playing. It is about us,” Insell said. “Every pregame we talk about having great ball pressure, denying the passing lanes, having good help-side defense, and getting rebounds so we can have one-and-done situations that allow us to get into our transition offense. People have asked me, ‘You’re not shooting a great percentage, so how are you scoring so many points?’ We are turning people over and getting the game to speed up. We’re also getting a lot of offensive rebounds and converting out defense into offense.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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