Ole Miss women’s basketball falls to the Texas A&M Aggies 66-58 in the regular season finale on Sunday.
“I just want to commend Texas A&M,” Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “I heard (Texas A&M coach) say they should be a tournament team. This will be at Ole Miss, my fifth year in the NCAA Tournament, and I can tell you that they are definitely a tournament team. They’re coming together at the right time. What usually happens when you have a bunch of transfers, same situation with us, we just don’t have any margin of error with Sira being out. It’s definitely showing its head. When I built the team, she was a big part of it.”
McPhee-McCuin added that she is playing a lot of people, and when Sira comes back, they will have a lot of experience. “It’s a lot of expectation on them, and they’re doing their best. Her absence is felt.”
Ole Miss (21-10, 8-8 SEC) was led in scoring by Cotie McMahon with 19 points and nine rebounds. Her teammate Tiann Thompson was right behind her with 12 points.
“I believe in this team, and when we are at full strength, we’re a tough out,” McPhee-McCuin said. “We’ve shown that, but right now that is not our situation. As a coach, I have to figure out how to be better for them.
Texas A&M jumped out and scored 23 points in the first quarter and held the Rebels to 13 points.
“The 23-point first quarter just completely took us out,” she said. “We don’t have any room for error like that. We can’t recover. We don’t have the bodies, and we don’t have the experience to recover. When we are at full strength, we’re going to be tough out.”
Ole Miss will now head to the Women’s SEC Basketball Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina, this week and play on Thursday after getting a first-round bye as the seventh seed and play either the No. 15 seed Auburn or No. 10 seed Texas A&M. The game is slated for 5 p.m. CT and can be seen on SEC Network+.
