SEC basketball teams aren’t supposed to lose games like the one Ole Miss played Thursday night against North Alabama.
They’re not really supposed to be in danger of losing them, either.
Yet there were the Rebels, trailing by two points at halftime after falling behind by as many as 10 against a North Alabama team that had committed an astonishing 16 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes.
That’s right. North Alabama gave possession to Ole Miss 16 times in one half and still had a 27-25 lead into the locker room.
It takes some remarkably bad shooting for that to happen, and Ole Miss was more than willing to provide it.
Fortunately for the Rebels, the second half followed the script everyone probably expected from the beginning. Ole Miss dominated the final 20 minutes, outscoring North Alabama 47-24 to escape with a 72-51 victory.
And according to Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, there wasn’t some fiery, screaming halftime speech that sparked the turnaround.
“All I said was, ‘You’re going to have to win this game. We don’t make the layups for you. We just put you in position, but you’re going to have to win it,'” McPhee-McCuin said. “And if you want to win it, it starts on the defensive end.”
It was a pretty simple message for a team that couldn’t seem to do much of anything right offensively in the first half.
Ole Miss made just 11 of its 34 field goal attempts before halftime, shooting a just 32.4 percent. North Alabama, meanwhile, made 11 of its 23 attempts for a much healthier 47.8 percent.
The Rebels were getting extra possessions thanks to North Alabama’s turnovers but couldn’t do much with them. They scored 13 points off those 16 turnovers and still found themselves trailing.
It wasn’t much better on the glass, where North Alabama held a 21-13 rebounding advantage.
“I think we missed like 10 layups in the first half,” McPhee-McCuin said. “We’ve got to make the easy baskets. I don’t know that winning teams miss easy baskets.”
The Rebels also looked like what they are: a relatively new group still figuring out how to play together.
McPhee-McCuin explained that her players are still learning a new offensive system and sometimes get so caught up in making the correct reads that they forget the most important part of basketball is putting the ball through the hoop.
“They’re making reads, but they’re not remembering that they need to score,” she said.
Things certainly changed after halftime.
Ole Miss made 19 of its 28 field goal attempts over the final two quarters, shooting a remarkable 67.9 percent. The Rebels scored 26 points in the third quarter alone, one more than they managed in the entire first half.
They also doubled their points in the paint from 16 to 32 and collected 14 second-half assists compared to eight before halftime.
Most importantly, the defensive intensity finally translated into the kind of basketball McPhee-McCuin expects.
North Alabama shot just 34.6 percent in the second half, committed another 14 turnovers and managed only 12 points in each of the final two quarters.
Jada Richard finished with a team-high 17 points, while Jaida Civil added 15 and Doneelah Washington scored 13.
Knisha Godfrey provided an important spark off the bench, scoring all eight of her points after halftime while finishing with five assists.
“Right now, she’s bringing us great energy off the bench, but maybe I need to start her,” McPhee-McCuin said.
That’s something the coach will have to figure out, along with plenty of other things about this team.
Because even though the final score suggests a comfortable win, the Rebels can’t ignore the first 20 minutes.
