All of Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s comments following the loss to South Carolina

Ole Miss suffered a 75-59 loss to South Carolina at home on Thursday night. Following the game, head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin addressed the media with a candid assessment of her team’s performance.

Opening Statement:

“When you’re up against teams ranked No. 2, No. 6, No. 5, No. 14, and No. 15, you have to leave it all on the floor,” McPhee-McCuin said. “You need your best basketball, and when the margin for error is so slim, the only way to make up for it is with incredible belief and fight. That’s why South Carolina has only lost two games. If we want to beat teams like that, we have to play for all 40 minutes. I was disappointed by the effort tonight. It felt like we quit in the fourth quarter, and that’s a reflection of me. I have to look at why that happened. We needed people to step up, but it wasn’t the case. No player was in the positive; everyone was in the negative, and some were worse than others. We’ve got to have short-term memory because we face the No. 7 team on Sunday.”

On the Team’s Lack of Fight:

Asked if she was surprised by the team’s lack of fight, McPhee-McCuin responded, “Yeah, I am surprised. At home, last game, you have a chance to do something big. You’ve played against big teams, and I don’t think they were afraid, but it felt like we quit at some point. As a coach, I felt helpless. I couldn’t just sub in and fix things. All I can do is coach them up, but I wasn’t going to give a big speech because I felt like we know how to fight. We’re no strangers to competing at a high level. But Starr (Jacobs) didn’t show up tonight, and that really hurt us. We depend on people like Madison (Scott), and she’s got to play better. On the positive side, Sira (Thienou) came alive, which we haven’t seen in about eight games. I thought KK (Deans) fought hard, and Christeen (Iwuala) nearly had a double-double. When you’re facing these kinds of teams, you’ve got to decide if everyone is going to give their all. If they don’t, you won’t win. South Carolina has beaten teams by 30 and 40, and while I’m not looking for a pat on the back, I thought we played well in the first half. But it took a lot of me stepping out of character to get the team to fight. By the third quarter, we didn’t come out ready, and in the fourth, we had no more fight left. I never want to see that again, so that’s something I’ll be addressing tomorrow.”

On South Carolina’s Depth:

When asked about South Carolina’s bench production, McPhee-McCuin acknowledged the challenge of facing a deep team: “South Carolina is deep. I don’t know if you know this, but everyone on their team is an All-American. They don’t have a drop-off in talent. You have to withstand their runs, and we didn’t do that tonight. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we need to figure out how to handle it. I haven’t lost hope in our team—we still have a lot of basketball to play. I expect South Carolina to be a Final Four contender. They’re playing for something too, and I’m trying to get my team to understand that. Everyone says, ‘Oh, you don’t have anything to lose.’ But they have something to lose, and sometimes, you have to play like you have something to lose. South Carolina didn’t want to lose to us, especially with their fight for the No. 1 seed. They’ve only lost two games, so there’s a lot we can learn from tonight. There are things we can build on, but I’ve got some things to address.”

On Who Will Step Up in Future Games:

When asked about the players she will rely on moving forward, McPhee-McCuin explained, “We don’t have a five that’s just going to be better than another five. Our strength is in our numbers, in the nine and ten players we rotate. When those players don’t show up, it’s bad news for us. We were lucky not to get blown out tonight because South Carolina has blown teams out. We didn’t play well, but we didn’t get blown out, and I couldn’t even play Starr (Jacobs) for 15 minutes. We kept it somewhat respectable because some players fought, but we need the entire team to show up. Our strength is in our numbers.”

Ole Miss now prepares for their next challenge against the No. 7 team on Sunday, with McPhee-McCuin determined to address the issues that plagued her team against South Carolina.