Matt Insell has insisted on being honest with his players in his first two seasons as women’s basketball coach at Ole Miss.
With his team mired in a seven-game losing streak and running out of time to affect a change, Insell didn’t change his approach. Instead, he told his players to stop and look at him. He wasn’t panicking. Once Insell had his players’ attention, he told them to listen. He didn’t offer them a zen moment, a la former NBA championship coach Phil Jackson, but he did show them an interview Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant gave to NBATV. In the clip, Bryant said players have a choice when they get to a wall. He said they can push through it or beat it down or they can hit on it a couple of times and back away from it.
Nearly two weeks later, Ole Miss has three-fourths of that wall down and is riding a wave of momentum that it hopes will help it raze the rest. Ole Miss will get that chance at 1 p.m. today (SportSouth) when it takes on No. 11 Mississippi State (25-5, 10-5 Southeastern Conference) at Humphrey Coliseum.
At 17-11 and 7-8, Ole Miss is in position to get to .500 in the league. History has shown that teams that reach that mark in the SEC have a great chance to make the NCAA tournament. Insell is banking on that because his team has a Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) of 94 (through Thursday’s games). That mark is lower than Southern Mississippi, which has a RPI of 91. But Insell’s team has an advantage against Southern Miss in that it is coming off a 67-59 victory against No. 13 Kentucky on Monday and a 58-57 victory against LSU on Thursday. Insell feels a victory against No. 11 MSU would give his team a huge edge on other teams that are on the NCAA tournament bubble.
“I think there are 27 teams that are in (the NCAA tournament) and there are four slots left for at-large teams,” Insell said. “I think there are six or seven teams competing for those four. If we can beat State, right now State and Kentucky are two teams in the top 20 that will host first and second rounds (of the NCAA tournament). If we beat them, we will have beaten two top-20 teams in one week. Tell me another bubble team that has done that.”
Ole Miss has gotten to this point with a reboot that helped it put a seven-game losing skid in the rearview mirror. The streak started on Jan. 18 with a 58-49 loss at Texas A&M. Morgan William helped extend that skid when she hit a game-winning 17-foot jump shot in the waning seconds to lift MSU to a 64-62 victory in Oxford. Losses to LSU, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Missouri followed before Ole Miss snapped the run Feb. 19 with a 51-46 victory at Auburn.
Insell said his players had lost confidence and hit a wall after so many close calls. He said they were questioning what they were doing and if and when something bad was going to happen. He said he needed to stay calm to reassure his players that they had time to reverse their fortunes and realize their dreams of playing in the postseason. The three-game winning streak has expanded Ole Miss’ thinking to include the NCAA tournament, a goal that might not have appeared possible a few weeks ago.
“They’re having fun again,” Insell said. “They had lost that swag and that pop for a little bit. They found that at Auburn and got back to having fun on the court. Against Kentucky, they got back to having fun and making plays.”
Forward Tia Faleru made the final plays Ole Miss needed to beat LSU when she hit two free throws with 9.3 seconds left to make Senior Night at Tad Smith Coliseum a rousing success. Faleru had her SEC-leading 12th double-double of the season with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore Erika Sisk and junior guard Gracie Frizzell led the way with 14 points, while senior forward Danielle McCray had 10 points and eight rebounds.
Insell credited his juniors and seniors for “buying in” and not giving up on the season. He said Faleru and McCray give the Rebels a one-two post tandem he feels is as good as any team in the league. He also feels Ole Miss has a chance to beat anybody when Frizzell is hitting from 3-point range. If you add the contributions of Sisk and freshman point guard A’Queen Hayes, Insell feels the Rebels have a combination that has come together at the right time.
Today, Ole Miss will shoot for its third SEC road win and third victory against a ranked team. If history is any indication, the game could come down to the final minute. The past three meetings have been decided by two points, including two overtime games last season.
Ole Miss, which was picked last by the media and the coaches in the preseason poll, has a chance to finish in the middle of the pack. It already has eclipsed its win total (12) from last season and is guaranteed its first winning regular-season record since the 2009-10 season. The 17 wins and seven SEC wins are the most since 2009-10.
“Going from worst to possibly tied for seventh is pretty good in year two for a program that people wrote off and said was done,” Insell said. “In two years we have went from the doormat of the conference to at worst being tied for seventh, and if we win (today) to being seventh outright.”
A win also would enhance Ole Miss’ resume for the NCAA tournament. He feels his team has an even better case than Arkansas, which he feels is being counted in the NCAA tournament by many people. He said his team has faced a tougher league schedule (two games against Kentucky, LSU, and MSU), while Arkansas’ SEC victories have come against Auburn (two), Missouri, Alabama, Georgia (without leading scorer Shacobia Barbee), and LSU. On the other hand, Ole Miss defeated Georgia when it had Barbee and holds wins against Kentucky, LSU, and Arkansas.
“The game of basketball is not played on a computer,” Insell said in reference to his team’s RPI and how it might affect its chances of earning a bid to the NCAA tournament. “I think Arkansas is a real good team. If they’re in the NCAA tournament I think Ole Miss should be in, too.”
But Insell knows talk isn’t going to convince the NCAA tournament selection committee his team deserves to be considered for an at-large bid. He understands results will help his team control its destiny, which is why he feels today’s game is so important. After that, he said he likes his team’s chances next week at the SEC tournament, which will begin Wednesday in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He feels his team is playing as good as anybody in the league, and is anxious to see what it can do to make its case for an invitation to the Big Dance.
“The last thing I told my players was that it was a great win against LSU, but that if I have to give you a motivational speech to get excited to play (today) then you have to find another school to go to,” said Insell, who gave his players Friday off. “It is a big rivalry. It is something our fans enjoy. They’re going to have a great crowd. We’re going to have a lot of people coming down. They have signed up to come down on different buses. Last year when we came down we had four or five loyal fans who came with us. … I expect it to be close again (today). Both teams are going to play really, really hard. Vic will have them fired up to play, and their crowd is going to be fired up. I believe we’re going to come in with a bunch of kids who believe they can do it.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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