Yolett McPhee-McCuin is in her ninth season at Ole Miss, and she has almost none of the team she had last year.
This year is different because we don’t have any returning starters. So we have 10 newcomers and 2 returners that didn’t play a lot of minutes. So basically, I have a brand-new team.
At SEC Tipoff in Birmingham on Tuesday, she said the staff built this roster on purpose to be different. “We have height. We have shooting. We have point guard play. I mean, we have scorers. I mean, we have a little bit of everything.” It is also younger than her recent teams, a choice she made “so that we can focus on retention moving forward.” Her own caveat: “Ask me in about 4 months how I feel about that.”
The SEC picked Ole Miss seventh in its preseason poll. South Carolina was picked first.
“The only thing we can do is continue to rise”
Every season gets a word. This one is RISE: resiliency, intensity, sacrifice and execution.
Okay, what’s next for this program? Okay? 5 consecutive NCAA tournaments, 2 Sweet 16s in 3 years. What’s next for us? And the only thing we can do is continue to level up. And the word rise just stuck with me.
“No ceilings is our motto,” she added.
A new offense
Ole Miss has been known for defense under McPhee-McCuin, and she wants to keep it that way. But the offense will look different, she told SEC Network.
We’ve done a good job scoring the ball, but it’s most times it’s been from an isolation standpoint… This year it’s more continuity-based, spacing the floor, more pro style, you know, just utilizing reads and playing off of that.
That means everyone has to work on both ends. “Now they have to play on both ends of the floor at a high level,” she said.
Talaysia Cooper and Jada Richard
Two of the newcomers joined her on the SEC Network set. Talaysia Cooper, a preseason second-team All-SEC pick, said McPhee-McCuin is teaching her a more disciplined kind of defense. “You know me, like, I go for the steal. Sometimes I fumble, but Coach O been pushing me to be more disciplined, knowing where the ball is.” McPhee-McCuin said that when she asked Cooper what schools she considered out of the transfer portal, Cooper told her, “honestly, Coach, I just thought about you.”
Jada Richard, a point guard who transferred from LSU, was a recruiting target for McPhee-McCuin out of high school. “So, for me, it was a no-brainer once she got in the portal that I would want to recruit her,” the coach said. “She’s definitely PG-1. She’s the leader of the team for sure.”
Richard summed up what she expects from the style of play: “You know when you see Ole Miss women’s basketball, we’re going to guard. And we’re going to guard for 94 feet for 40 minutes.”
Nine years, and Dawn Staley
A reporter noted that she and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley are the only two coaches from when she arrived who are still at the same SEC school. “I consider myself one of the deans of the Southeastern Conference.” Staley is one of only two SEC programs she has not beaten, and she called Staley “the standard as far as I’m concerned,” and a friend. “At first, there was no friendship. I was Lil Sis. But definitely now there’s a friendship.”
My biggest lesson is be where your feet are and love the place that you’re at. And I just love being in Oxford.
Hotty Toddy 🦈
Quotes from Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s SEC Tipoff press conference and the Ole Miss SEC Network interview with McPhee-McCuin, Talaysia Cooper and Jada Richard, Oct. 13, 2026, Birmingham. Preseason poll via On3; Richard’s background via Ole Miss Athletics. Photo: Yolett McPhee-McCuin at the SEC Tournament, March 7, 2026. Credit: USA TODAY Network.