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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2020Yolett McPhee-McCuinMimi ReidNashville, Tennessee Missouri 64, Ole Miss 53 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Ole Miss. We're going to open with a statement from the head coach, then direct questions to our student-athlete, then we will wrap-up with questions for coach. YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: When I was hired at Ole Miss, I was given the challenge to build a program. Seeing that this is my second chance at building a program, I understand that before you can take two steps forward, you may have to take a step back. To a lot of people, they may think that this step back was trending down and showing where the program is headed. But I can assure you that it is trending in the right direction. I thought that our players for 16 conference games played extremely hard for about 10 of them, and I thought that they gave everything they had in a generation that's so fragile. They're willing to quit every time they're hit with some adversity. I commend my young ladies for just continuing and fighting every single day. The energy was great all season. We never stopped coaching them. We never stopped laying the foundation. Now we can just only look forward to the future. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athlete. Q. You did a pretty good job staying in it up until the second half. Where do you think that disconnect came from? MIMI REID: I believe the disconnect came from just we started to not believe, we started to almost give in to the things that we kind of struggled with all season. Then we had to recollect, remind ourselves that we came this far now, you don't stop, you don't quit. I think the disconnect came and then we just decided to snap back. The coaches just kept pushing us and kept coaching us. I think we was able to regroup really quickly. Q. Coach talked a lot about the resistance of this group. Where did that leadership come from? Who on the team do you think really kept the group grounded and focused? MIMI REID: I wouldn't say it was one particular person. It was definitely somebody different every day or every practice. But, to be honest with you, it was Coach Yo that kept us fighting, that reminded us who we are. Sometimes somebody would break, but we were like, No, you can't do that. She would just remind us. I can't say it was just one person in particular. It was somebody different every single day. Q. She mentioned the team was trending in the right direction. What does that look like for you? MIMI REID: It looks like, as she talked about, winning conversations. It looks like positive talk. It looks like always encouraging one another, understanding there will be adversity. It's just a matter of when you get back up, you just have to keep going. I think that's what it looks like for the future of this program. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, Mimi. MIMI REID: Thank you. THE MODERATOR: We'll open up the floor now for questions for Coach Yo. Q. You mentioned having to take a step back in order to move forward. With a season like this, a lot of teaching moments. For you what was probably the biggest that you faced this season? YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: That's a great question. I just think that this probably -- I may go home and make myself a coach of the year award because this has been my best coaching job by far. I didn't think we would recover after the South Carolina loss. I was very concerned about our team, just their mental state. The staff, the whole program, was in a state of shock. I just learned from this that I believe that my mission is to teach, develop, and inspire. I truly believe this is my ministry, helping young women. Any time I would feel like quitting, because I'm human, too, I've won a lot, I just said, I need to be the example for the players. I need to show them how to grow, how to get through adversity, because they're going to be moms and wives and aunties. Their kid or niece or nephew will have some type of adversity, and they have to be able to give them the tools that they learned from here in order to be successful. I think that's just life. Really, this is just a game. Shame on coaches that don't use it to teach young people about life because a percentage of these players, 1%, are going to play professionally. This is not the NBA. It's 12 teams to a roster. They're getting ready to go and be in the world, CEOs, surgeons, teachers, police officers. They have to be resilient. At some point they'll go through adversity. So my number one focus was just teaching them how to handle that. I think the redshirts that I have sitting out, kicking our butt every day, helped too because I get to see them all the time. Obviously our recruiting class that we have coming in. Q. You talk about the players that didn't get to see a whole lot of action this season. What can you say about them coming into next season? YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I think we'll look totally different. There's no coach in the SEC that does not know that. They've been working extremely hard. We have four young ladies that are home that will be eligible to play in the fall. Then we have three so far coming in that are pretty good. One thing I did with the young ladies that are on campus redshirting is after every game, they would send me a synopsis of the game, what they thought we could have done different, what they heard in the scout, what they learned. Just teaching them how to see the game from an outside perspective. I think in the SEC, Power 5, if you want to be successful, like you have to have pros. You don't have to have a whole team of them, but you have to have a few of them. When I was at the low major, I needed mid major players. Mid major you need high. High major you need pros. I think we have about two of them next year that I'm excited about. I'm just looking forward to where we're going. No one feel sorry for me. We signed the number one recruiting class in the SEC. No one is patting me on the back. Everyone is, We know what you got coming. Like I said, I thought it was our best coaching year. Who would think an 0-16 team would be in the game with Tennessee and lose to Alabama by a basket, and Florida, have Mississippi State on the ropes for a little bit. That's gaming and scheming, game planning and scheming. I thought we're prepared and we're ready for the next step. Q. In today's age of immediate satisfaction, how do you convince your players that don't quite understand good things happen over time? YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I think you have to try to use real-life experiences. I have two daughters. I really think baby strollers and stuff, they're scams. The baby is going to walk when it's time to walk. You can't encourage the baby to walk. One day, Yuri, my two-year-old, got up and started walking. She didn't need any assistance. I just think it takes time. I think that's how it works with everything. What we've done as a staff, we've been completely realistic with our players about life and building something. It's like building a house: you don't just throw it in together for a week. You have to put in the floor, lay the foundation, build it up. So just a lot of real-life experiences, talking to them about that. Just trying to relate to them as much as possible, getting them to block out the noise. Deflecting, me taking a lot of the brunt of anything that went wrong, just putting it on my shoulders because I thought that they were strong enough to handle. I think they'll be better for it. Q. You mentioned the games against Mississippi State, Tennessee. The beginning of the season a lot of blowouts, I don't want to say. YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Yeah, we got our bleeps kicked. Q. Going down through SEC play, you wanted to get wins, but still growth, losing by a few points. YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: No doubt. I think there were a lot of wins we had this season that maybe didn't show up in the win-loss record that will show up later on. I think like Mimi said, coaches are leaders, and we must be examples. Every day we came in and had great energy, great focus. We didn't just get beat by 60 the other night, you know. Just being a storyteller and selling a bag of goods sometimes. My players really thought we were going up in there to beat Tennessee. They really believed that. So you have to do some convincing as a coach. Like I said, this is not my first bill at Jacksonville. My first year we were 13-12. Then the second year we were 12-14. The only difference is I'm in the SEC now, not in the A Sun. I was able to steal a couple wins through it all. The SEC is the best conference, most physical, talented, most talented conference in the country, in my opinion. You have to have it. You have to have it all in order for it to happen. We just don't have that yet, but it's on its way. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time. YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Thank y'all. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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