Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin discusses transfer portal landscape: ‘I don’t make the rules, I just play the game’
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SPOKANE, Wash. — As strange as it seems with the Sweet 16 about to commence, the basketball transfer portal is off and running, having opened up on Tuesday. Rumors abound about who is leaving, who is coming and what schools are in the mix to gain or lose talent on their rosters.
While Ole Miss (22-10) prepares for its Friday night game (9:00 p.m. CT on ESPN) against No. 1 overall seed UCLA (32-2) in Spokane, the Rebels are having to simultaneously look to the portal for next season’s players while they work to retain their own players — as other schools would love to steal some of head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s talent.
Coach Yo understands the portal craziness comes with the territory.
“I just think it’s a part of our job, especially I’m a self-proclaimed portalista. So we kind of prepare for this moment. We have an idea of who may go in the portal because of just the rumor mill, and then we kind of just sit back and wait and see if it happens.”
Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin on the portal
Ole Miss has six transfer players on its roster, a veritable who’s who of this year’s team: KK Deans (Florida), Tameiya Sadler (Colorado), Kennedy Todd-Williams (North Carolina), Starr Jacobs (Arkansas Pine-Bluff), Christeen Iwuala (UCLA) and Kharyssa Richardson (Auburn).
With the Rebels’ top three scorers — Madison Scott, Todd-Williams and Jacobs — all exhausting their eligibility this season, along with Deans, Sadler, and Iwuala, Coach Yo and her staff will look to the portal to bring in some experienced players. She explained at Thursday’s presser that the portal is the reason Ole Miss only signed one freshman in the last recruiting cycle.
“Coaches now are GMs. We’re all figuring out who is leaving, who is staying. So we only signed one freshman because I prefer a mature team. I don’t think in today’s times, you can be young. By the time they get old, they’re ready to get rid of you, so you kind of got to stay mature and stay old, and you can see that with my team. It’s just a part of it.”
Coach Yo on her portal philosophy
While she is, of course, focused on coaching her team in its second Sweet 16 appearance in the last three seasons, Coach Yo gets the reality of the portal landscape with its pros and cons.
“I would prefer for it to be at the end of the season, but I’ve also been in those rebuilding stages when I needed an opportunity to be able to recruit and get in there. So I don’t make the rules. I just play the game. But it’s been wild because I have been reading stuff, and I’m like, ‘That’s not right. Like, we’re not recruiting that person.’ But you know what? They say even if it’s bad news as long as they’re talking about you, it’s good.”
Coach Yo on the portal
Plenty of people are talking about the Rebels’ run in the tournament — and you can bet they’ll be the talk of the basketball world if they knock off the top-ranked Bruins and bring in another stellar portal class.
Next Up:
Ole Miss and UCLA tip off at 9:00 p.m. CT Friday. The game will be televised on ESPN
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn's love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception. Email Evie at: Evie@TheRebelWalk.com
