OXFORD – Ole Miss women’s basketball coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin is hopeful her team’s win at archrival Mississippi State last Sunday was a “turning point.”
The Rebels (13-5, 4-2 SEC) had an uneven start to their SEC slate, splitting their first four games. But Ole Miss has since won its last two, a 25-point win over Florida and a 71-63 win over the Bulldogs in Starkville. The Rebels led by seven early in the third quarter at Humphrey Coliseum but trailed Mississippi State by one point 12 seconds into the fourth. Ole Miss senior guard/forward Madison Scott led the Rebels’ late charge, however, scoring eight of the team’s 18 points in the fourth. The Bulldogs were held to just 5 of 14 from the field in the fourth.
Scott scored a career-high 30 points, and senior forward Starr Jacobs (15), senior guard Kennedy Todd-Williams (11) and freshman guard Sira Thienou (10) joined Scott in double-figure scoring.
Ole Miss faces a tall task Sunday, as the Rebels host No. 7 Texas at 2 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN. The Rebels are No. 13 in the current NET rankings while Texas (18-2, 4-1) is No. 2.
“There are a lot of different moving parts to this group. And that’s why I said I feel like the Florida game, but more the Mississippi State game, being on the road in a tough environment like that, and we have to find a way to win, could be the turning point for our team,” McPhee-McCuin said. “ … We were looking for kind of a signature win. In my opinion, that was one. They had just beat Oklahoma, were just in a dog fight with Tennessee, and everybody knows that it’s hard to win at The Hump. And so, I was really glad for that.”
McPhee-McCuin said she noticed Scott going particularly hard after practice prior to the game against the Bulldogs. Scott regularly works out 30-45 minutes daily against “one of our practice guys” who is about 6-foot-5. Scott was going so hard, McPhee-McCuin said, she almost stopped their workout. But as she saw Scott have one of the best games of her life in Starkville, McPhee-McCuin couldn’t help but think the senior was envisioning those matchups.
“We understood how important that game was,” Scott said. “We have been stressing the importance of playing Ole Miss women’s basketball for 40 minutes, putting together complete games. And I feel like we did that. I’m proud of my team. I feel like we are growing from some of those mistakes we had earlier in the season and learning from them. So, I think that that showed in the game.”
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