SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 13, 2026

Yolett McPhee-McCuin

Ole Miss Rebels

Women's Media Day Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Yolett McPhee-McCuin, affectionately known as Coach Yo is beginning her ninth year as head coach as Ole Miss. In '24 Coach Yo assumed the reins again of the Bahamian women's national team, after previously holding the title from 2014 to 2017. A Freeport native, she led her home country at the FIBA Women's AmeriCup Central Basket qualifier this past summer.

Coach Yo is the first woman from the Bahamas to sign a Division I letter of intent to play basketball, and it's the first Bahamian woman to coach at the DI level.

When not on the court Coach Yo is a highly requested speaker and philanthropist who is heavily involved in the community through her No Ceilings with Coach Yo Foundation. The nonprofit works to provide support for women and children through basketball clinics and educational initiatives in the U.S. and the Bahamas.

Please welcome to the dais Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin.

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Good afternoon. When I heard Tiffany say "year nine," I just started to think how lucky I am because, you know, it's rough out there for coaches. I'm just really blessed to be in my ninth season at the University of Mississippi. I think a lot of that is credited to my administration for the belief, the staff, and players that have joined me, for their belief, and basically everybody that had a hand in me being there and being able to sustain at Ole Miss adopting the four ins, which is believing in, buying in, be all in, and locked in.

Really excited about this season. Obviously I have a great respect for the Southeastern Conference. Our depth in the league is self-explanatory. Last year I think the ninth place team made it to the Sweet 16 and was ranked 16th in the country. You know, there's just a lot of parity, a lot of talent, and I'm excited about taking team 52 to wherever they want to go this season.

Any questions?

Q. My question is for you, I obviously got chance to see you guys practice in early June. Two newcomers -- obviously more than two newcomers. Two returners, more newcomers. What's different about this year's team in terms of having more newcomers versus last year's team when you had newcomers?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Well, we've always had about eight new players because, you know, I'm very active in the portal, but this year is different because we don't have any returning starters. So we have ten newcomers and two returners that didn't play a lot of minutes. So basically I have a brand new team.

The difference is one of the things that I think my staff and I focused on was making sure we diversified the roster. I think we'll look different offensively, and then hopefully we can maintain the same intensity and what we're known for defensively.

We have height. We have shooting. We have point guard play. I mean, we have scorers. We have a little bit of everything, and that's something that we focus on building with this roster.

Another thing with this roster, we're not as old as we used to be. Ask me in about four months how I feel about that. Usually I prefer to be old and gray, but sometimes you just get tired of getting on that hamster wheel, so decided to go a little younger so that we can focus on retention moving forward. I'm excited. I enjoy coaching them every day.

Q. If you could go back and give yourself advice after your second year in the year when your conference record wasn't where you wanted it to be, what would that advice be?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Hold on. Hold on, because it was a rough ride. I kind of talked to our staff about that. Any time you are taking over a program when they were in the transfer portal and could play right away, we didn't have all those kind of things. I did it the old-school way, my staff and I. We just had to kind of believe in what we were doing and just stick to coaching the game as we know it.

Q. Kind of rough time for coaches in today's era with short patience. I think if you look at the coaches that have been in the league when you took over, it's just you and Dawn Staley still at the same school. What does it take to survive at one school in this league?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Yeah, first of all, I'm proud of that. I consider myself one of the deans of the Southeastern Conference. I think just having an administration that believes in what you're doing and making you feel comfortable enough to stay in that space. Most times coaches don't want to leave. Most times it's the opposite.

So for me, I just feel really blessed that we had an opportunity to still be there. I was thinking about that the other day. Oh, my God, I have been at Ole Miss for nine seasons. I hadn't been anywhere for nine seasons except for my marriage.

You know, I'm really grateful for it. Oxford is home for me. I'm really bought into the community. I'm a part of the community. You know, I just think it's a blessing every single day, for sure.

Q. Your word of the year is "RISE." What does that mean and how does this team represent that especially being such a new roster?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: When I thought about the word "RISE," every year I get a word and R is resiliency, I intensity, S sacrifice, and E execution, and when I think about -- when I thought about the word, I was, like, okay, what's next for this program? Five consecutive NCAA Tournaments, two Sweet 16s in three years. What's next for us? The only thing we can do is continue to level up, and the word "RISE" just stuck with me.

Really, it has nothing to do with the outcome. It's just a process every single day for my young women to just focus on being their best selves. "No ceilings" is our motto, so there is no ceilings for what we want to accomplish, so the only thing we can do is continue to rise. That's why the players come to our program, and that's what the word in this essence means.

Q. A question about Jada Richard. What's your relationship like with her, and why did you want to add her through the portal?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: I recruited Jada out of high school, and she chose to go somewhere else. For me, it was a no-brainer once she got in the portal that I would want to recruit her, just because I believed in her before she even got to college.

Obviously we hadn't had a chance to communicate in that two years, but it felt like we just picked up where we left off, you know? I enjoy having her. This is a different role for her coming here with us, so I'm excited about that. I'm excited about growing with her, with the five-for-five rule. She has three years.

To me, she's still kind of young. She's definitely PG-1. She's the leader of the team, for sure.

Q. You've talked about your nine years. What would you say was the biggest lesson you've learned thus far?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: You are never as good as you are, and you are never as bad as you think you are (laughing). Just stay even-keel, you know?

Sometimes when we have a big win, everybody loves you. Then if you don't, then the energy shifts. But I can say this, I think -- because at first I thought that was a lesson, but that's not really the biggest lesson. My biggest lesson is be where your feet are and love the place that you're at. I just love being in Oxford.

Honestly, if I'm being fair, they treated me the same even when we were losing. The community really wrapped their arms around me. One or two trolls, but that's just a part of it in our new world. Other than that, it's just been a lot of support.

I'm just really happy that I'm at Ole Miss. I think that would be the biggest lesson. Don't get too high or too low, but also, be somewhere where they believe in you.

Q. Obviously you've been here in the SEC for almost a decade now with South Carolina being picked to win the league again, I'm curious from your perspective, what has it been like to compete against them for almost a decade now, and how has your relationship with Dawn Staley evolved in that time?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: Yeah, I mean, it's been great. I see her as a mentor most days except for when we compete.

I was thinking the other day, out of the 16 teams, there's only two I hadn't beaten, and she's one of them. She knows every time the ball goes up in the air, we want to win, but I mean, she's the standard as far as I'm concerned.

She's been pretty consistent. She's reached out. We talk all the time, but now I consider her as a friend. At first there was no friendship. I was lil sis, but definitely now there's a friendship.

Q. You've elevated this program to a high level of success. You've now recruited the No. 1 transfer class in back-to-back years. How do you sell success and sell success at both Ole Miss and at Oxford because are you such an integral part of the community? I go to school there, and I see you there all the time doing things. How do you balance the competitiveness that you are here to win games, but also how do you get them to be involved with the community, because that's one thing that's been a staple of all your teams?

YOLETT McPHEE-McCUIN: For sure. The first thing is when people consider -- I was talking to Coop the other day, and I said, when you went in the portal, what schools did you consider? I don't know if she was gassing me up, but she said, honestly, Coach, I just thought about you. I've seen the work.

So the proof is in the pudding, you know? We're kind of up and coming, but not. We've been consistent, you know? Like I said, five winning seasons in a row, 20-plus winning seasons, two Sweet 16s. Look at the math. Not a lot of teams are doing that. It's very hard to sustain in this era.

So when people think about or consider Ole Miss, they think about success. They think about the WNBA. They think about going pro. They also find it intriguing that they get to work on who they are as women, you know, by being in the community, by leading, by giving back and making sure that it's not just about basketball, but it's the total person. For that, I'm proud of.