Caleb Harris
Ole Miss women’s basketball (20-5, 9-3 SEC) trampled the Kentucky Wildcats (10-14, 2-10) 74-52 on Monday evening in the SJB Pavilion. The win marks the second-straight season where head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s squad will finish with 20 wins in the regular season.
“That just goes to show that we’re a program to be reckoned with,” McPhee-McCuin said about the 20-win season after the game. “That is something that we’re going to celebrate for the rest of the night until we start to prep for the next game.”
The Rebels’ motto, “We defend,” proves yet again that a suffocating defense can provide good offense. The Rebels held Kentucky to shooting from 26% from the floor, 21% from the three-point line and outrebounded them 52-33.
After an offensive struggle in the first quarter, Ole Miss came out of the second quarter hitting five three-pointers compared to the first where they went 1-for-5 from beyond the arch. The strong second quarter gave Ole Miss momentum heading through the rest of the contest.
There were times when Kentucky tried to claw back into the game. At one point, the Wildcats took the Rebels’ 18-point lead and cut it down to 11 midway through the third quarter. Senior guard Angel Baker was able to get a key layup to extend the lead to 14 points, and the Rebels never looked back.
Eight out of 10 Ole Miss players scored in the game. Five players were in double-digit scoring, including the lead scorer of the game, Marquesha Davis, with a double-double. Davis logged 14 points, shot 7-for-13 from the field and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Baker crossed the 2,000-point mark in her career, one of few Ole Miss Rebels to ever achieve that milestone..
Ole Miss will face No. 5 LSU in Baton Rouge on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. CST. This can potentially make or break the Rebels’ chances of getting an NCAA Tournament bid.
