It is a great opportunity, a new season and the Ole Miss Rebels are proud to be there. There is Minneapolis, Minn., for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Ole Miss will battle Gonzaga today at 2:30 p.m. CT in an opening-round game. As always in the “Big Dance,” it is loser go home.
The contest will be televised on ESPN2.
Ole Miss (23-11) enters as the region’s No. 5 seed, while Gonzaga (24-9) is a No. 12 seed. The rebels are a near-13-point favorite, according to ESPN.
“We are excited about what’s to come,” said Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, as she shifted her thoughts to taday’s opponent. “Gonzaga…being what’s next…I have a lot of respect for (Gonzaga head coach) Lisa (Mispley). We go way, way, way back when I was an assistant at Portland.”
The Rebels have a roster fill of transfer portal players this season, such as Cotie McMahon (Ohio State), Christeen Iwuala (UCLA), Latasha Lattimore (Virginia), Debreasha Powe (Mississippi State), Denim DeShields (Mississippi State), Tianna Thompson (Georgia Tech), Jayla Murray (Wichita State), Kaitlin Peterson (Central Florida) and Desarae Kyles (Central Michigan).
On a team made up primarily of first-year transfers and freshmen, the group obviously came together well this season for Ole Miss. This the Rebels’ fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth for McPhee-McCuin at Ole Miss, who took over a program that was dumpster fire eight seasons ago.
“In the Southeastern Conference, we don’t really get an opportunity to be young,” said McPhee-McCuin. “We have to stay old, if we want to compete at a high level. When we put this team together, we didn’t only want to acquire talent, but we wanted to have experience.
“When I was going through our roster, I thought about how many have experienced the NCAA Tournament, and then how many have experienced Sweet 16s, Elite Eights. We have a good amount…A lot of experience with our team that I hope pushes through this moment.”
OleMiss365.com will have full coverage of the Minneapolis Regional.