Facing his former team, Matt Insell and the Lady Rebels picked apart the #9 Lady Kentucky Wildcats to pull the upset 73-65
The Lady Rebels played this same highly ranked Wildcat team at home last season and scored the upset. This time Ole Miss came through again completed the wire-to-wire upset.
“What a great win for our program”, head coach Matt Insell said, “To get a win over a top 10 team just speaks volume on where we’re going with the process of what we’re doing with this program.”
Ole Miss, playing in it’s third of five straight games against top 25 opponents, knew they were going to have to go back to the basic basketball in order to pull of the upset.
That was “Ole Miss basketball” as Insell credited it to.
“We did not do that in our four game stretch”, he said. “We kind of took blows from people, and it’s like you’re in a boxing match taking blow after blow after blow. Eventually, you fall down and we had to start delivering some blows, and we had to do that with our defensive intensity.”
Kentucky only led once in the game, in the opening minutes of the first quarter at 7-6. After that it was all Lady Rebels.
Ole Miss used a 10-3 run to push the lead out to 17-11 and the Lady Rebels used that early lead all the way into halftime by a score of 35-30.
The key moment in the game was early in the fourth quarter, with Ole Miss up a 12. Kentucky used an 8-0 run to bring the game to 59-55. The closest they have been since the first quarter.
The Lady Rebels followed by making shot after shot and answering every Kentucky punch they threw at them. The Lady Wildcats never got closer than four down the stretch of the fourth quarter as Ole Miss pulled away.
The last five SEC games Ole Miss had shot an average of 33 percent from the floor. Against Kentucky they shot 42 percent. Insell said it was another reason why they played so well.
“We took good shots. We executed offensively. We didn’t get rushed,” Insell said, “I feel like we’re getting good shots and we’re missing them. I’ve got to get us easy shots. I felt like we got easy shots.”
Shaquilla Joseph scored a season high 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 5-of-7 from three.
“I felt in a rhythm at shoot around this morning”, Joseph said, “My position coach was telling me to follow through and to keep my arm up. That’s what I did today and my shots were falling.”
“Shequila Joseph had a great night,“ Insell said, “Probably her best night she’s been at Ole Miss and I challenged her also. Her coaching staff has challenged her”
Ole Miss got other season high contributions from A’Queen Hayes as she scored 14 points and dished out six assists. Shandricka Sessom provided a big boost in the second half scoring 11 of her 14 points. That group helped Ole Miss force 21 Kentucky turnovers.
Tonight’s win marked the first in the Pavilion for the women’s team and Matt Insell’s third win over a ranked foe.
The Lady Rebels are back in action next Thursday night as they face #2 ranked South Carolina on the road at 6 p.m. CT
