The Ole Miss women’s basketball team exhibited major scoring struggles in Thursday’s home loss to No. 23 Tennessee at the Pavilion in Oxford.
The Rebels (8-8, 0-3 Southeastern Conference) lost 84-28, failing to score more than 12 points in a single quarter. Ole Miss scored six points in the first quarter, eight in the second, 12 in the third and two in the fourth.
“We’ve just gotta get through this, there’s no excuse,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said in a news release from the school. “Tennessee is a great team. They were just so big, I think our players were just shocked. It was as if they couldn’t get anything, and that’s just how these top-25 teams are going to look. I think they’re the tallest team in the country, and so they bothered us. Every time we had a beat, they caught up on us and they were able to deter our shots.”
Dominique Banks scored 12 points for Ole Miss, and Jayla Alexander scored nine. The Rebels are dealing with the departure of guard Valerie Nesbitt, who left the program earlier in the week.
“We’re in the storm, and we’ve got to go through it,” McPhee-McCuin said. “We can’t go around it. At the end of the day no one is going to feel sorry for us, and I don’t expect them to. This is the most physical, unforgiving conference in the country.”
Ole Miss travels to face LSU (12-3, 2-1 SEC) at 2 p.m. Sunday.
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