NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - OLE MISS VS STANFORD

March 19, 2023

Yolett McPhee-McCuin

Angel Baker

Madison Scott

Maples Pavilion

Ole Miss Rebels

Media Conference

Ole Miss 54, Stanford 49

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: First of all, just incredibly grateful. I have a lot of mentors in my life, and one of my mentors would all say to me that the person with the experience is at the mercy of the one with the anointing. He spoke that over my life maybe like ten years ago. And so to be in this situation right now, to take down an historical program like Stanford, a coach and a woman that I admire and I've watched, is incredible.

I'm incredibly grateful to be in this position and I look forward to -- I told my team, like, I just love them so much. I don't want to stop having this feeling, so who knows, maybe we end up in Dallas.

But right now, at least we know we punched our ticket to the Sweet 16, so, grateful.

Q. Madison or Angel, when you guys took the court, you went up against, she said an historically great team and a team that was hoping to get back to the Final Four. You guys led the entire time and only had three ties, never lost the lead. So what gave you guys that much confidence?

ANGEL BAKER: To start off, just walking in, knowing who we are, we have been battle tested all year. We've fallen short, and it was finally our time to step into that moment and come out on top. I feel like we walked in with confidence and we knew who we were from the jump.

MADISON SCOTT: What she said. Our God is so good and He's been with us every step of the way. When He's with us, we know we won't fail. So today, we came out and we were together for 40 minutes and we came out with the W. We are just grateful and like Coach Yo said, we're going to keep going.

Q. You guys talk about, you pack your defense, and even Stanford admitted they knew you guys said that you pack your defense. You force three straight turnovers on three straight possessions. Talk about trusting that defensive mentality even when Stanford made that run to tie the game and you could have easily let it go but you kept playing hard on the defensive end and forcing the turnovers that really clinched the game for you guys.

ANGEL BAKER: We defend, to say the least. I feel like we had great leadership in Myah Taylor. But we defend, and we were confident. Happened to go down and defend and get some stops.

Q. Both of you collectively did well knocking down your free throws. What's the key to making the free throws, a, in the NCAA Tournament with the pressure, and b, in a hostile road environment? What's the key to maintaining your composure and knocking those down?

MADISON SCOTT: First, Coach told us from the jump, we had to knock down our free throws, we may not get many of them but when we got to the line, be composed and knock them down. That's key on the road, in an environment like this, the fans going crazy. We wanted to win. We didn't want to go home.

So we wanted to make sure that we knock down our free throws, dialed in, and that's just the work that we've been putting in. Before we left, we were in Oxford shooting free throws every day before practice, after practice. The work shows and it's just a testament to how hard we work.

Q. This is not just an historic moment in terms of women's basketball but for the State of Mississippi as well, given the history of Ole Miss, you have a black female coach and even just 40 years ago, some of these things were unheard of because of all the things that have gone on in the south. What does it mean for you to have a leader like this, a black woman leader where in a place you could not even walk on campus in my lifetime?

ANGEL BAKER: It means a lot. One of the reasons why I came to Ole Miss is I wanted to be under a coach that looked like me. I feel like Coach Yo really just, is a believer, a fighter, and that's somebody who I want to represent. We try our best to resemble her on the court with a lot of passion, just toughness.

So it means a lot. I feel like she had done a great job with this program, and I'm proud of you, Coach.

MADISON SCOTT: You know, I want to start with saying, I love you, Coach. She pushes us every single day to be great. Like Angel said, her toughness, her resilience, everything she has been through she always comes out on top. That's what she instilled in her players. She let's us know every day don't give up, don't stop.

Even in a game like today where nobody thought we could play in this game with Stanford, nobody thought we could win she believed in us and she instilled that in us. So we went out there; and having a coach that believes produced and pushes you to be greatest single day, we out there and gave it everything we had for her, for her us, for all the hard work that we put in.

So to answer your question it's amazing to be coached by a woman like Coach Yo. This is just the beginning, she's not done and I'm excited to be here and I'm just excited by the opportunity to be coached by her.

Q. For both of y'all, you've been so close to this kind of win a couple of times this year. Did LSU and South Carolina, did that pop into your head at all down the stretch where you're in a time-out huddle or whatever, were you thinking about those experiences and what you could bring from those?

MADISON SCOTT: Definitely. You know, we fell short a lot of games this year that we felt like we should have won. We didn't play Ole Miss women's basketball for 40 minutes, so that was our goal coming in. We wanted to be tough and be together for the entire 40 minutes, play defense at a high level and communicate at a high level and do what we came here to do, get a win.

Definitely those games, falling short, that hurt in the moment but ultimately prepared us for this moment. We finally closed out a game and we are just hungry for more. We are hungry to keep playing some games.

Q. Y'all touched on this a little bit and coach said on the broadcast at the end, but there at the end where maybe you had not been there before and Myah was really encouraging the team, and you ended up executing on defense so hard. So would you just walk me through those final minutes and also what Myah maybe said?

ANGEL BAKER: Myah is a great leader. In those closing minutes, she was just saying, "It's not over until the buzzer is off." But she also in the huddle she was just telling us to stay together.

I feel like she played a major role. She might not have scored the most points or whatever but her leadership was superior, like, literally. I don't think we could have did it without her.

Q. You and Snudda both committed to this program after an 0-16 SEC record. What is this moment like for you? You got the opportunity to hit free throws that put you guys ahead. What is it like seeing that your belief in Yo and this program paid off?

MADISON SCOTT: The feeling I'm feeling right now is undescribable. All I can say is I'm just so happy. I'm so blessed. I'm so grateful. I'm just happy to be an Ole Miss Rebel. This is what I came here for. This is what me and Snudda came for moments like this.

Each year, I've said it, before we continue to get better and better under the leadership of Coach Yo. We have amazing scorers like AB that come and join us and so forth and so forth. Like we have come a long way, and I'm just -- I'll just so happy. That's all I can say. I'm just so happy, and again, you know, I keep saying it because I believe it, we all believe it: We're not done. There's still more work to be done. So let's do it.

Q. You held them to 2-of-7 shooting from the three-point range. What was the key to your perimeter defense and locking in on that side of things?

ANGEL BAKER: I feel like I keep repeating myself, I'm sorry. We just take pride on the defensive end. We definitely dictate when we disrupt. We knew that they were going to try to get some threes off, so we just tried to lock it on that and make it a hard time for them.

Q. So the shooting, 30 percent for you guys and like 32, 33 for them. How do you win a game like that against a team of this ilk? And what was the feeling that went through your mind knowing how much you respect Tara, when the buzzer went off?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: It was an incredible amount of emotion for me, I'll tell you that, immediately. I was just overwhelmed with gratitude and just hugged my staff, because we put in so much work, you know.

Our players show up and they do the job, and they execute the game plan. But my coaches and my support staff, like we burn the midnight oil.

And so it was just an incredible amount of emotion. As far as us not shooting well, we knew that Stanford's size and length would be a little problematic for us. But we also know that we defend, and that's why we can't explain it, like people, you know, I know a lot of people talk about, oh, Ole Miss is aggressive. But they don't give enough credit to how disciplined we are defensively, especially when we lock in.

And honestly, when I realize that we had to get a stop to win the game, I had far more peace than having the score on the other end to win the game because that's who we are.

So we have won tons of games by having to get a stop, and our team just felt like we could do it.

Q. I want to ask you about your journey. You started your career as a community college employer, spent a lot of time as an assistant coach and you go to Jackson, a small school in the Atlantic Sun. How much did that prepare you for this moment and this game to coach against Tara and win this kind of game to get yourself to the Sweet 16 for the first time for your program in 15-plus years?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I'm on Twitter. I'm active on Twitter, and let me tell you how, like, my faith works.

This morning when I woke up, I drafted the Tweet I was going to Tweet after the end of the game. Because I knew I would be full of emotion, and I needed to get my thoughts together. In the Tweet, it states that my parents, Karl Smesko, the head coach of Florida Gulf Coast; Len Bria (ph), the head coach at Stetson; Jose Fernandez, the head coach at South Florida and all of the southeastern coaches, my husband, have prepared me for this moment.

And that was on my heart. And so my whole journey, I tell people, I always use like basketball analogies, and I say, for my life, y'all, I never get a wide-open layup. I always have to do a pro-hop or a Euro step to score in life. It's just been my journey, so any time it's easy, it's a set up for failure.

But I'm a learner. I'm a student. And every stop I've learned something, from Frank Phillips Community College to Miami-Dade, shout out to Susan Summons who taught me how to put belief into her players; to Boe Pearman who was incredibly tough as a coach who taught me how to be resilient. The list goes on and on of people who have impacted my life and that are responsible for me being right here, right now.

Q. I spent some time with your girls and your parents before tip-off, and your team came out on the court and said, that's my mom, and they were dancing, and the example you talked about yesterday, wanting to be the future of women's basketball and the future these kids are seeing, and your dad is fighting tears. How much does that mean to you to be showing your young daughters that, hey, this is what you can do when you chase your dreams?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: You can't be what you can't see, and I really believe that. So my daughters are learning how to be strong and go after dreams and also how to be a wife and how to balance. I cry in front of my kids. Had we lost, my 10-year-old would have cried tonight. My five-year-old is just living the dream right now. But my 10-year-old, she would have been an emotional wreck.

Everybody asks me where I get my passion from. Man, I tell this story over and over again. My dad lost in a championship game. The gym cleared out and he cried, and I was Yasmine's age, my 10-year-old's age, and I remember walking over and crying with him. That's when I learned passion and love for the game. And so my daughter is the same way.

And I don't care if she doesn't coach, but what she is learning, what they are learning, is let's normalize women in leadership. They are watching my players. They are seeing Coach Chris, Coach Bojan, Coach P treat me in a respectful manner. It's just really good society work, you know what I mean, because really, that's how it should be where we all love and respect each other.

So I wouldn't have this -- I wouldn't want to do this without them being here, little Chris being here. In our gym, there's little kids running all over the place. So they are all getting a chance to see us do something special.

And my dad, then he talk all this smack about how he don't cry because he don't lose a lot (laughing). But my parents are here, super emotional.

Q. I couldn't quite tell, were you crying after the game?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Oh, shoot, I was -- I was a mess (laughs). Joy. Joy. Tears of joy. Tears of just humility, you know. Like come on, everyone had a dream coming up, and when you're coaching, I'm a dreamer, you know, and I try to be a dream merchant for my players.

But like how cool is it to take down someone that you admire? Like that was pretty freaking cool. Because I admire Tara, you know, so I'll never forget this.

Q. This kind of upset does not happen often in the women's game.

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: That's right.

Q. What does it say about the depth, the growing depth in your game?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: It says a lot, and you're so right, and that's what I was telling the team. I said, Fairleigh, FDU went and beat Purdue. Like, we've got to normalize that for the women's game. A lot of times, women, this doesn't happen because as females, we are taught to hone it in, you know what I'm saying, because I get attacked all the time; oh, I'm too bold, I'm too brazen, I'm too this, I'm too that. But the coach from Fairleigh Dickinson said on TV that he was going to beat Purdue, and they did it.

So we need to normalize women being competitive and having dreams and goals and wanting to win, you get what I'm saying? I think this is good for the game. The Southeastern Conference is full of personalities. We want to fit right into that.

And I know that one of my staff members asked you what you were doing here, and I'm telling you, we speak things into existence, so I'm looking forward to seeing that write up.

Q. This is a huge, monumental win and a lot of emotion and everything, but how do you find a way to find an appropriate place for that emotion but still keep your team locked in and focused that, hey, we are not done yet and how do you not get too high from this as you head to Seattle?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Yeah, we'll have tomorrow off. And I'm a right now-type person, because I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So we're about to party like it's 1999 tonight, and then tomorrow, we'll party again. And then we'll all watch Texas ask Louisville together to see who we're going to play and then we'll get right back to work. When we win, we party, and then we let it go.

So I think they deserve that, and honestly, I really felt like if we could get over this hump, beating the No. 1 team; we faced the No. 1 team in the country and come up short. I felt like if we could get over this, boy, there's no telling what we can do.

So we're going to be ready to roll. We want to keep winning because we know if we lose, we go home. So I've got to get an e-mail together for my kids, send it to their principals and say, see you when I see you, because we going to Seattle.

Q. 1999, your players weren't born yet. I talked to the bus driver that drove you all around all week, the three bus drivers, and then Jonquel Jones is on Twitter already dancing.

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: That's my girl.

Q. Seems like everywhere you go, you have these people following behind you like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, if you know that story. What is it about your story this attracts people and how has that dovetailed into your coaching style?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I think everyone loves a story that they can relate to. I didn't play on Team USA. I didn't play for the late, great, Pat Summitt. Geno didn't endorse me, you know what I'm saying.

Like I really got it out of the mud. Y'all, I'm an immigrant. I migrated from the Bahamas and came over here and started in junior college and worked my way up. You know how I got this job at Ole Miss? I called Ole Miss and said, what are you guys doing? I'm hot and y'all could get me for cheap, and I'm recruiting my butt off with a $20,000 recruiting budget. Give me yours and watch what I do.

So I've always been bold, and I also share my story with a lot of people. Like I'm on social media. Like that's me Tweeting. And so people feel like they can be a part of it, and so this is their journey because I let them in, and I think that's what makes it special.

And then, the Bahamanian people, like, we just love a lot. Like we're joyful people. Come on, we live on the beach, an island. Like what's to be upset about, you know? And so we are just joyful people and we try to spread it.

And then lastly, I'm a Christian,, a person of faith, and one of the things that -- we have a lot of Christians on our team, and so they always challenge me. My Christian, mentors tell me, people need to see God through you and God is love in my opinion and my faith says that. So anybody who I touch I want them to feel love.

Q. (Off-mic).

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: That's for another conversations.

Q. You mentioned the humility you felt when everything ended tonight but the last four years there's been progress each year from the 0-16 SEC year until now; what was the moment like when the buzzer went off?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I just cried. Three seconds left, my team was celebrating and I was looking at them like, lock in, lock in, focus; this thing can go anyway. But they just felt it at the 16-second mark. They was like, it's over. And I was able to keep my composure and when the buzzer sound, I just cried.

Right before the game, I talked to a good friend of mine and I said, what people don't know about me, y'all, I've won big games. Like I could remember from even being a Hooper in high school winning beat games. Beating Karl Smesko, they were the juggernauts for seven years, no one beat Florida Gulf Coast at Florida Gulf Coast until Coach Yo showed up. No one had beat Jamaica in the CBC until my team beat Jamaica. I have won big games, you know, so I just kept telling one of my friend, like I'm due for a big game. This was cool. It was super cool.

Q. Can you talk about Thompson?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Oh, my God, our freshman, how about that? Our freshman is just stone cold, man. I would say something else but trying to keep it professional.

Ayanna is from Desoto High School. They are champions. They are winners. And when we recruited her, we wanted to bring someone from a championship pedigree program. She was just waiting for a moment and we were really nervous before the NCAA Tournament because she had twisted her ankle.

She didn't even play in the SEC Tournament and when she looked at me and she said, "Coach, I'm going to be playing," I played it cool but I was jumping for joy because she was the X-factor for us in both games. Really excited about her. Future's super bright.

Q. Talking about you felt like you were due for a big one, was there a point where you could kind of identify, you've played outstanding teams already before already. Was there a point where you could kind of say, this feels different, this feels like we might get this one?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Honestly I felt that way as we were preparing for Stanford. This is going to sound funny but, like, I understand the legacy that Stanford holes. My players, the games are on so late, they rarely get to see Stanford, so they weren't intimidated. You get what I'm saying. On Central time, East Coast, we get to see those teams all the time, so there's an intimidating factor when you play a South Carolina, a Tennessee, an LSU.

But Stanford is on the West Coast, so they don't really know how historic this program is. And so I didn't spend any ounce of any time trying to convince them that they could play with Stanford when they just took South Carolina into overtime.

So as they were prepping, they just locked in, they looked at me, and they said, "Coach, whatever you say, we're going to do." Team 48, man, wild group, really happy for them.