Matt Insell thought it would take four years to reverse the fortunes of the Ole Miss women’s basketball program.
Judging from the fact that Ole Miss will return to the postseason tonight for the first time since the 2009-10 season, Insell’s rebuilding efforts are ahead of schedule.
Ole Miss (17-13) will take that first step at 7 tonight when it plays host to Tennessee-Martin (22-10) in the first round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
Ole Miss is coming off a 72-61 loss to Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference tournament on March 5 in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas (17-13) finished below Ole Miss in the SEC’s final regular-season standings and still earned a bid to the NCAA tournament on Monday night. A win by the Rebels, who beat the Razorbacks earlier in the year, could have put it in position to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament.
On Tuesday, Insell lamented a regular-season loss to Vanderbilt in which his team surrendered a 16-point second-half lead in a 58-54 loss on Feb. 5 in Nashville, Tennessee. He said that loss, his team’s inability to split its two regular-season meetings against Mississippi State, and the loss to Arkansas were integral reasons why he wasn’t able to guide Ole Miss to the NCAA tournament in his second season.
Still, Insell was excited when he considered where his program was when he arrived after working as an assistant coach for Matthew Mitchell at Kentucky. A year after winning 12 games, Insell has Ole Miss feeling good about the opportunity it has in the WNIT.
A year ago, MSU used a run to the quarterfinals of the event to build momentum for the 2014-15 season. The Bulldogs’ 22-14 finish last season set the stage for a record-setting campaign that saw the team establish a program record for overall wins (26), wins in the SEC (11) and single-game and overall attendance records. On Monday, MSU earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Insell hopes Ole Miss will join MSU in the “Big Dance” as soon as possible.
“(The players) were disappointed last night (when Old Miss didn’t receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament),” Insell said. “We knew it was an outside shot and that nobody had us in, but we felt we had better wins than some of the teams that got it. They knew we weren’t in as they started watching it, but, at the same time, in the back of their heads they hoped to be in it.
“When the NIT released its field of teams, the excitement level went up. They’re all really excited.”
Insell said the Rebels hope to use that enthusiasm with the lessons they learned from their latest loss. He said the Rebels had an uncharacteristic effort on defense against the Razorbacks’ ball screen. Insell said that area of the game typically is one of Ole Miss’ strengths, but that wasn’t the case in the second-round loss in which Arkansas shot 64.7 percent (11 of 17) from the field in the second half.
Insell said Ole Miss broke down the tape from that game and has used the gap between games to get more repetitions for younger players like Bretta Hart and Kelsey Briggs and to work on fundamentals. He said the Rebels aren’t satisfied with the program’s sixth all-time appearance in the WNIT or the fact that they proved the SEC coaches and media members wrong. Both groups picked Ole Miss to finish 14th — last — in the league.
A strong senior season from Tia Faleru, who leads the SEC with 13 double-doubles, and the emergence of point guard A’Queen Hayes have been keys for the Rebels. Faleru, who was named first-team All-SEC, was the first player since LSU’s Sylvia Fowles to lead the league in rebounding in back-to-back years. Faleru (14.7 points per game, 10.3 rebounds pergame) was the only SEC player to average a double-double this season.
Hayes became Ole Miss’ first player since Valencia McFarland to be named to the SEC’s All-Freshman team.
While Faleru will graduate at the end of this school year, Insell feels his program is going in the right direction. He said he recruiting continues to go well as Ole Miss works to build its way back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2006-07 season, when it advanced to the Elite Eight.
“No matter what happens in the WNIT it has been a successful season,” Insell said. “We take pride in what we have done this year. But as we move forward — and for the years to come — it is not acceptable to be sitting here and not be in the NCAA tournament. We’re setting the mentality and the mind-set that next year on Monday night we’re going to be sitting here and going to the NCAA tournament. We want to put that mentality in their head. … We took a huge step in getting to the WNIT this year. We’re ecstatic about it, but in our minds we all know there is another step we need to take.”
Unfortunately, the WNIT didn’t do Ole Miss any favors by matching it up against UT-Martin, which went undefeated in regular-season play in the Ohio Valley Conference. A loss to Tennessee State in the OVC tournament finals cost the Skyhawks the league’s automatic bid.
Ashia Jones leads the Skyhawks with 23.6 points per game. MSU transfer Jessy Ward averages 11.0 ppg., while Tiara Caldwell leads the rebounding efforts (7.5 per game).
The winner of tonight’s game will play the winner of the Elon-Georgia Tech game at time and date to be determined.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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