Maybe the voters in the AP top 25 poll were right after all about Ole Miss dropping one spot in the latest rankings.
The Rebels fell to No. 15 in the AP Top 25 Women’s College Basketball Poll only a few hours before dropping a 66-49 game to No. 24 Michigan State.
“A disappointing offensive play for us tonight,” Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said after Monday’s night game at the Cherokee Invitational. “Really expected us to have more fluidity, so it’s definitely something that we’re going to have to take a look at and make adjustments so that we’re better come conference play.”
That gives the Rebels only eight days to fix any problems before hosting Georgia on New Year’s Day to kickoff SEC games.
“We’ll go back to the drawing board and take a look at what we need to do,” McPhee-McCuin said. “Hopefully we can notch that one and then we open up versus Georgia. We’ll be ready to go.”
A blowout loss against the second ranked opponent the Rebels have faced this season isn’t the way they wanted to enter Christmas break. McPhee-McCuin certainly wasn’t happy Monday night.
“I don’t think this team is playing its best basketball right now,” she said. “I think we just have to figure out a way to win games, figure out a way to get easier baskets for us, for people to go ahead and knock shots down that I know that they can knock down. We’re going to need that.”
However, taking a step back to take stock of the season so far, Ole Miss is in a good position.
Big Picture
ESPN’s bracketology was updated Tuesday morning and Ole Miss remained a No. 5 seed. If the biggest goal for the Rebels is a spot in the NCAA Tournament, they’re on the right track.
In the updated NCAA Women’s Basketball NET Rankings, Ole Miss is ranked No. 22 overall. That’s the highest NET ranking for any college basketball team (including men) in Mississippi.
Here’s the Rebels’ NET rankings breakdown:
- Overall: 12-2
- Road: 2-0
- Neutral: 3-2
- Home: 7-0
- Q1: 1-1
- Q2: 0-0
- Q3: 2-1
- Q4: 9-0
Schedule
Looking back at the Rebels’ results this season and its clear the Rebels are good enough to beat the teams they’re supposed to beat (Alabama A&M, Wofford and programs like that).
Ole Miss is also capable of winning games it probably should’ve lost (Notre Dame) and lost games it should’ve won (Kansas State).
That type of performance is fine for some teams, but if Ole Miss wants to join the likes of South Carolina, LSU and Texas, it needs to play better.
And pretty quickly too. The Rebels’ first SEC game is against undefeated and unranked Georgia and their second is against No. 2 Texas (14-0).
At least the Rebels will get an early opportunity to make a case for inclusion in the upper tier of SEC teams.
Player Highlights
Two players jump out immediately when looking at the season stats for Ole Miss: Cotie McMahon and Christeen Iwuala.
McMahon is the team’s leading scorer with 18.4 points per game, she’s shooting above .500 from the field and above .600 from the charity stripe. She also is averaging 5.5 rebounds per game and has 29 assists, 16 steals and eight blocks.
Iwuala is nearly averaging a double-double with 15.8 ppg and 9 rpg. She leads the team in minutes per game with 28.1 and has even higher shooting percentages than McMahon (.599 field goal, .662 free throws).
McMahon and Iwuala are two of three Rebels to start all 14 games this season and average 27 minutes a game. Sira Thineou is the third member of that group and is averaging 6.9 ppg, 6 rpg, 2.9 assists per game and has 22 steals this season.
There are other Rebels who have had impressive performances this season, too, including Latasha Lattimore (team-high 27 blocks) and Debreasha Powe (24.7 mpg).
Next Up
Ole Miss will wrap up its non-conference schedule on Sunday when Alcorn State comes to Oxford. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. on SECN+.
