No. 19 Ole Miss likely saw its chances of hosting a NCAA Regional slip away in a 74-67 loss to unranked Florida on Thursday night. After the game, coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin talked to reporters about her team’s performance and provided an update on an important injury sustained during the game.
Here’s everything she said:
Opening statement…
“First of all, I thought Florida came out and played with a tremendous amount of energy. I was worried about this game because they had been playing high level basketball throughout, just not figuring out a way to win. And they were able to do that tonight. So, credit to them.
“As far as my team was concerned, I was just really disappointed in our presence. I didn’t feel like we showed up ready to compete. Right now, this is the time of the year where teams should be desperate to win and I just didn’t feel that desperation from my team. That’s something that I will have to look at and figure out how to correct.
“Defensively, we did just an awful job. My team is used to scoring a bunch of points. And a bunch of those points were on the bench. Didn’t even play with Sira and then [Latasha Lattimore] hurting herself early in the game. We got to get back defensive minded and figure out how to be stingy and just gut these games out until we could get people healthy. Then we really got to hone in on to the identity to dictate and disrupt.”
On Latasha Lattimore’s injury…
Sprain. It was evident one less person that can score the ball. But there’s no excuse. At the end of the day, we still can defend. You know what I’m saying? You don’t have to score a lot of points to defend early in the year. And Sira is the head of that. We used to be a defensive team and now because we’ve been scoring a lot of points, we’ve really got excited about that. That’s just not our identity and it can’t be our identity right now because we have people that are out. It’s just disappointing when we’re out here and we’re not defending at a high level. We don’t even have a chance to win because our offense is not playing (well). So, we got to get back to who we want to be, our identity, and come out and be better defensively.”
On James Meredith t-shirts coaching staff wore during the game…
“It means a lot. At the end of the day, I’m grateful for it. I don’t really have much to say on it right now. But I am grateful. I know I’m the first, but hopefully I won’t be the last.”
On Tianna Thompson’s career night…
“I thought Tianna did well. I thought she came out and competed. She’s the future of the program. She’s just a sophomore. She’s one of the future pieces, her, Sira, and some of the others. Just a great, great opportunity for her. At the end of the day, things that we do out here has to impact winning. And if I know Tianna, she’s not excited about scoring 25 points and us losing. We have to figure out a way to win.”
