STARKVILLE — Matt Insell couldn’t leave town Sunday without a rant.
The Ole Miss women’s basketball coach didn’t go off on the official who issued him a technical foul in the second half of his team’s 55-47 loss to No. 11 Mississippi State before a record crowd of 7,326 at Humphrey Coliseum.
Insell also didn’t downplay his team’s effort and credited the Bulldogs for their performance and a rousing atmosphere in the state’s biggest rivalry.
Instead, Insell offered his most pointed comments to members of the NCAA tournament selection committee when he was asked if his team had done enough to earn an at-large bid to the “Big Dance.”
“No,” Insell said. “(Turning to Ole Miss women’s basketball sports information contact Jessica Poole) Do I need to get on my rant? I can get on my rant. There are going to be teams in the NCAA tournament that we can beat by 15 or 20 points. There is a team in the league that they are saying is in that we beat by 16. How is that? We played State twice, LSU twice, and Kentucky twice. We didn’t get the option of playing some of these other teams that maybe are not as good as other teams twice, but you have teams in our league that are probably going to get in that had weaker schedules. It is all about the schedule in the league, and I am going to keep preaching that over and over and over.”
Insell’s rant lasted 2 minutes, 38 seconds. In it he likened women’s college basketball to college football and said people evaluating teams need to get out from behind computers and stop relying on numbers — like Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and Strength of Schedule (SOS) — to determine which teams get invited to the NCAA tournament. Through Sunday’s action, Arkansas has an RPI of 46, while Ole Miss’ RPI is 97, according to the NCAA.
“Do I think we should be in? Yes. Do I think we will be in? No,” Insell said. “But I will tell you this, we are going to be the seven or the eight seed in the Southeastern Conference tournament. We are going to the tournament to upset somebody.”
Ole Miss (17-12, 7-9 SEC) tied with Missouri for seventh in the league, but it lost the tiebreaker thanks to a 72-58 defeat to the Tigers on Feb. 15 in Columbia, Missouri. Ole Miss will play ninth-seeded Arkansas at noon Thursday in the second round of the SEC tournament in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The winner of that game will take on top-seeded South Carolina at noon Friday. The winner of the SEC tournament will earn the league’s automatic bid to the 64-team NCAA tournament field.
On Monday, ESPN.com’s Charlie Creme had Arkansas as the seventh, and last, SEC team into the NCAA field. He said, “Neither a 6-10 SEC record nor a loss in the regular-season finale at Missouri help them. But the Lady Razorbacks benefit from a bad group of competitors for the final spots on the bubble.”
That remark likely won’t sit well with Insell, whose team beat Arkansas 71-57 on Jan. 2. Ole Miss also has victories against Georgia (at full strength with leading scorer Shacobia Barbee), then-No. 13 Kentucky, and LSU, Creme’s sixth SEC team into the NCAA tournament. It accomplished that with a roster that features five freshmen and a first-year member of the program (Erika Sisk) all in prominent roles. That bunch was picked 14th in the 14-team league in the preseason poll.
“We knew we had a good basketball team,” Insell said. “We knew were young and inexperienced, but we were growing. To finish in the top half of the league after being picked last, not a bad season for Ole Miss. We will build on that and move forward.”
In Insell’s defense, Arkansas has SEC wins against Missouri, Alabama, Auburn (two), Georgia (without Barbee), and LSU, but it also has non-conference victories against Middle Tennessee State. Iowa, and Oklahoma. Ole Miss lost to MTSU, which had arguably its best player, Cheyenne Parker, back for that game. Parker didn’t play against Arkansas. Ole Miss’ biggest non-conference victories came against Utah and Southern Mississippi.
Ole Miss missed a chance Sunday to earn another win against a ranked opponent thanks in part to 21 turnovers. Many of the 13 first-half mistakes were self-inflicted. The Rebels also shot 7 of 24 from the field (29.2 percent) in the first 20 minutes and trailed 28-16 at halftime. The total was the lowest in any first half this season.
Faleru, who averaged 14.9 points and 10.6 rebounds entering the game, led the way with 11 points and 10 rebounds, but the senior forward shouldered the blame for the loss. She lamented the fact she was 4 of 14 from the field in 37 minutes.
“My shot wasn’t really falling for me today,” Faleru said. “It was kind of a struggle for me in the first half because I know when I make easy buckets it gets my team going. Once I have a lot of energy, my team has a lot of energy. I feel like in the first half that is what we were lacking.”
Insell quickly said Faleru shouldn’t have taken the blame for the loss. He also continued to set a confident example for his players and reminded everyone where Ole Miss was picked at the beginning of the year and how far it has come.
Redshirt junior guard Gracie Frizzell (11 points) echoed Insell’s thoughts when she was asked about the turnovers the Rebels committed.
“We just have to be smarter with the basketball, and I think we are going to do that as a team come this tournament,” Frizzell said.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.