Coach Yo on Ole Miss’ dominating win over Vols: ‘To protect home court was a big deal…that took a lot of character’

OXFORD, Miss. — In the middle of what head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin called “the toughest little stretch of anybody,” No. 17 Ole Miss did to No. 21 Tennessee what it’s been doing to teams all year in the SJB Pavilion on Tuesday night—controlled the game from start to finish and notched another signature victory with little difficulty.

Final from Oxford.
What a performance from the Lady Rebels. Cotie McMahon had 39 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists. What a night for her. Lattimore tacked on 14 points and 12 rebounds. Iwuala had 16 points five rebounds. Tianna Thompson added 12 points off the bench. A team… pic.twitter.com/IgMl8r5Pmh

— The Rebel Walk (@TheRebelWalk) February 18, 2026

Two days after Sunday’s loss in Lexington and with no time to practice in between, the Rebels thumped No. 21 Tennessee 94–81 at the SJB Pavilion, in a game that was far less competitive than what the final score would have you believe. Ole Miss was in control from the opening tip, ending the first half with an eleven-point cushion that swelled to 22 by the end of the third, before allowing a handful of fourth-quarter points after the game had effectively been decided.

Coach Yo after Rebels defeated Tennessee

The win, as we know, came under highly unusual circumstances, shaped by a late-January winter storm that upended the schedule as Oxford grappled with power outages and brutally cold temperatures.

Tuesday night’s game, originally set for that late January window, forced Ole Miss into a four-game stretch over eight days—all against AP top-25 opponents projected to make the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels’ win against the Lady Vols comes barely more than 48 hours after the team’s stop in Lexington and now have only that same amount of time to rest up and prepare for seventh-ranked LSU.

Coach Yo on the Rebels’ tough stretch of games

That context made Tuesday’s performance all the more significant. The Rebels shot 51 percent from the floor, put up more points than they had against any other SEC opponent this season, and defended their undefeated home record. It was also just the tenth win over Tennessee in program history, and only the third of the 21^st century.

Coach Yo on her team

At the center of it all was star forward Cotie McMahon, who delivered a season-high 39 points after shooting only four of 18 from the floor in Lexington two days earlier.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that,” McPhee-McCuin said. “Cotie’s a generational player.”

McPhee-McCuin praised not only McMahon’s scoring, but her approach to the game, noting that the star player’s five assists reflected her unselfishness on the court.

“She wants to win,” McPhee-McCuin said. “If she had 10 and we won, she’d be fine. But she’s good enough to have 39 when we play this type of style. It just really presented itself for her to do that.”

McPhee-McCuin also spoke candidly about her relationship with McMahon.

Coach Yo on Cotie McMahon

Contributions came from up and down the Rebels’ rotation Tuesday night, with five players recording seven-or-more points, something McPhee-McCuin noted when assessing the team’s ceiling.

“When we have across the board 14, 16, 39, 12, and 7, I don’t know if a lot of people can beat us,” she said. “And if Sira didn’t bang her knee, she would have probably been in double digits as well.”

Sophomore guard Sira Thienou exited briefly after banging her knee, but McPhee-McCuin seemed unconcerned with the severity of the injury while underscoring her importance.

“Sira was the one that started off the intensity,” she said. “Sira is the leader on the defensive end, and she really ramped it up. And when she does that, we’re hard to beat.”

Preparation (or lack thereof) in the midst of these very unorthodox circumstances was a recurring theme throughout the press conference. Coach Yo’s squad did not practice the day before taking on Tennessee and will likely not practice physically before welcoming LSU to Oxford.

“Well, we don’t,” McPhee-McCuin said when asked how the team prepares during such a stretch. “We just take it in small bites. Kentucky, 0–1. We found what the deal was. All right, let’s go 1–0 tonight.”

The approach, she said, is purely survival-based.

“If it helps us with the next game, we’ll look at it,” she said. “If not, we’re going to flush it.”

Despite everything that took place off-court which caused the grind that the Lady Rebels now face, McPhee-McCuin expressed confidence in her team’s resilience.

Coach Yo

She also used the moment to issue a direct appeal to the Ole Miss fan base, far from the first time in her career that she’s done so. Attendance was officially listed at 3,335—a respectable number, but one that left McPhee-McCuin a tad disappointed given both what’s at stake and what her team is going through.

“We need more support,” she said, in reference to fan attendance. “I’m going to be completely honest. I don’t understand the reason why we’re not getting it, but I know that we need it.”

With one of the nation’s best teams coming to Oxford on Thursday night (a team that will also be coming off a five-day break, no less) McPhee-McCuin said crowd energy could be decisive.

“The only thing that’s going to help us get through that game is the crowd support because it matters,” she said. “We’re going to need you.”

As for the next 48 hours, the coach’s personal schedule is as jam-packed as ever.

“At 6:15 I get up and I make breakfast for my daughters, and I pack their lunch,” McPhee-McCuin said with a smile. “Then I make coffee for my dad. Then I come in the office and watch film.”

There will be meetings, walkthroughs, and plenty of prayer—but no physical practice.

Coach Yo on the upcoming game vs. LSU

For now, though, McPhee-McCuin allowed herself to savor a hard-earned win—the Rebels’ sixth of the year against a team currently projected to be in the field of 68 according to Charlie Creme’s latest bracketology—in the middle of chaos.

“For me,” she said, “I was just glad we got the win.”

Next up, Ole Miss puts its perfect-at-home record on the line yet again when they welcome No. 7 LSU to the SJB Pavilion on Thursday, February 19, at 8:00 pm CT on ESPN.