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Ole Miss women's basketball earns first NCAA Tournament berth in 15 years

11by: Jake Thompson03/14/22JakeThompsonOn3

As the names of the other 63 teams rolled across the jumbotron inside the SJB Pavilion, Madison Scott was gripping the rail in front of her seat and felt like she was on a roller coaster.

For the Ole Miss women’s basketball team the ride is not over, earning a berth into the NCAA Women’s Tournament and snapping a 15-year drought.

The Rebels are 7 seed in the Wichita Region and will play 10 seed South Dakota in Waco, Texas in the first round on Friday. It will be the first time since 2007 that the Rebels have played an NCAA Tournament game. That year they made it to the Elite Eight.

“We’re going to go to this tournament and act like we belong,” said head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin. “We’ve been waiting on this moment. We didn’t just slide in. We’re grateful to have this opportunity and we plan on representing Ole Miss the right way.”

A NCAA Tournament berth comes at the end of a season that was one of the best in program history for the Rebels. They won 22 regular season games and 10 SEC games, both being the most since the 1991-92 season.

This was also the goal from the start this season for McCuin and her team. The slogan for McCuin was “NCAA Tournament or bust” and it was a mantra that permeated throughout the program all season.

“When you’re the leader of the program you have to have a vision,” McCuin said. “(Madison Scott), (Shakira Austin) and everybody that knows me knew what the vision was. I know that it was bold for me to say, ‘NCAA Tournament or bust,’ but I felt like I owed it to say that and put that in the atmosphere so that my team knew that I believed. Sometimes I can be an over-believer but this time it came true, so I’m excited about it.”

If the Rebels get past the Coyotes in the Round of 64, they will then play the winner between 2 seed Baylor and 15 seed Hawaii for the right to advance to the Sweet 16 on Sunday.

There were a total of eight SEC teams that made this year’s tournament. South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, Florida all joined the Rebels in the field.

Tipoff times for first round games will be announced later tonight.

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