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How has Ole Miss actually improved its defensive rating since last season without the superb rim protection of Shakira Austin? Under which scenarios will the Ivy League be a two-bid conference? What are the prospects for the Connecticut Sun next season after the departures of Jonquel Jones and Jasmine Thomas? For these answers and other great women’s basketball discussion, check out YouTube, Spotify, or Apple for the three weekly shows on the Her Hoop Stats Podcast Network - Dice it Up, Unplugged, and Courtside. Here’s a brief synopsis of this past week’s episodes.
Dice it Up - Coach Yo’s basketball journey and Ole Miss’ surprising start
Hosts Dano Mataya and Ice Young had the pleasure of speaking with Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin on this week’s episode of Dice it Up. Coach Yo discussed her basketball journey to Oxford, Miss., and the difficulties associated with building the Ole Miss program into the SEC power it is today. One of those challenges revolved around recruiting.
“The history of Mississippi and the South is something you cannot erase,” McPhee-McCuin said. “And it was an incredible struggle. We weren’t getting recruits. People would tell me, ‘If you were anywhere else, I would come.’ because all they think about is Mississippi Burning…but in Oxford, it’s a place of love; it’s a place of community; and as long as you’ve got the ‘M’ on your chest, people are willing to rock with you and roll with you. I had to use my charm and my recruiting prowess to convince people to come, and once they came, they were blown away.”
Coach Yo also touched on her team’s success this season, a year after the graduation of Shakira Austin. Despite losing the No. 3 pick in last year’s WNBA Draft, the Lady Rebels currently boast an impressive 17-4 record overall, including 6-2 in the SEC. However, McPhee-McCuin believes her squad is still developing, particularly with respect to the mindset they bring to games.
“What you’re seeing is me watching my team evolve and grow,” McPhee-McCuin said. “And through growth is going to be failure, and sometimes there’s going to be success…But we have to learn how to manage the expectation of winning.”
See below for the full 33-minute interview.
Unplugged - The curious case of LSU and other bracketology questions
LSU’s 2022-23 campaign is fascinating from a bracketology perspective. The unbeaten Tigers are No. 4 in both NET and the most recent AP poll. Sounds like a resume worthy of a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament, right? No. Not even close, really. The kicker is the Tigers’ strength of schedule, which, based on their opponents’ margin per 100 possessions, ranks 197th in the country. Given its unprecedented nature, it’s difficult to forecast how the NCAA tournament committee will handle this situation. So, when there’s a bracketology question that’s tough to answer, who you gonna call?
Our certified bracketologist, Megan Gauer, of course! In this week’s episode of Unplugged, Megan answered several bracketology questions from women’s basketball fans, which included what the Tigers’ ceiling is in terms of NCAA Tournament seeding and which five teams are currently in contention for a No. 1 seed.
See below for the full episode.
Courtside - Jonquel Jones to the Big Apple, Stanford’s shocking loss, and a WNBA legend retires
It’s been a pretty busy WNBA offseason, but rest assured, Courtside hosts Gabe Ibrahim and Christy Winters Scott have got you covered! In last week’s episode, Gabe and Christy analyzed every angle of the three-team blockbuster trade that sent 2021 WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones to the New York Liberty. They also offered their thoughts on Allisha Gray’s trade to Atlanta, Jasmine Thomas’ move to Los Angeles, and more free agency rumors.
It wasn’t all WNBA trade talk though, as Gabe and Christy discussed the official retirement of Maya Moore as well as one of the biggest upsets of the NCAA season, Southern California’s 55-46 win over then-No. 2 Stanford.
Check out last week’s episode below and be on the lookout for a new episode of Courtside later today!
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.