Ole Miss Women’s Basketball Claims Narrow Senior Day Win Over Missouri

Ole Miss Rebels women’s basketball claimed a senior day victory over the Missouri Tigers on Sunday, walking away with a 68-66 final score from the SJB Pavilion in Oxford.

Ole Miss (18-8, 9-5 SEC) was led in scoring by Starr Jacobs with 22 points followed by Kennedy Todd-Williams with 12 and Christeen Iwuala with 10. The Rebels shot 45.2 percent from the field and 8.3 percent from three in the win, and Missouri countered with percentages of 52.1 from the field and 37.5 from three.

“I’m grateful for the win, I’ll tell you that,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said after the game. “Senior day for me is always like a gift and a curse because there are so many emotions that go with it. You try to control your players’ energy, but there’s nothing you can do. They’ve got to play the game, and I was really proud of the way we finished.”

After losing to Ole Miss on Sunday, Missouri now holds a 13-16 overall record and a 2-12 mark in conference play. Despite that, the Tigers held a 40-30 lead over the Rebels at halftime of the game, and Coach Yo believes that Missouri’s win-loss mark isn’t indicative of how talented they are as a team.

“Missouri’s record does not indicate how they are as a team,” McPhee-McCuin said. “They had Tennessee down, they had Texas down. Really, they played everybody kind of like this. They’re just figuring out how to win games, and I’m glad they couldn’t figure it out against us.”

What changed for the Rebels at halftime? Ole Miss was able to outscore Missouri 29-11 in the third quarter, and the adjustments at the intermission revolved around defense.

“At halftime, I just talked to them about, ‘We’ve got to guard, man. We’ve got to sit down, and we’ve got to defend,'” McPhee-McCuin said. “We didn’t defend worth anything the first two quarters. We got in foul trouble in the first quarter super early, and then in the second quarter gave up 22 points and started playing stagnant and losing our identity.

“In the third quarter, we just went back to, ‘Okay, you know what? At the end of the day, we’ve got to guard.’ Because we started to defend, we ended up scoring 29 points to their 11, and that was the difference in the game.”

The Rebels have two games remaining in the regular season before the SEC Tournament begins. Ole Miss will play host to South Carolina on Thursday before traveling to take on LSU on March 2.

Tip-off against the Gamecocks this week is set for 8 p.m. CT on ESPN.