Locked On Women’s Basketball: Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin has Mississippi on a Final Four trajectory

Wednesday’s Locked On Women’s Basketball featured a conversation between host Howard Megdal and Mississippi head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, known to one and all as Coach Yo, about the emerging powerhouse in the SEC.

The two discussed how Mississippi’s win in the Round of 32 changed the way Coach Yo viewed the trajectory of her program.

Well, now it’s a national championship, you know, but I do believe in the process,” McPhee-McCuin told Megdal. “You know, a lot of people love to skip the P part. They just solely focus on the outcome. And I’m just not one of those people that just focus on outcome, don’t think about the process. I don’t believe you can skip skip steps.

“So for example, we went to Sweet 16. And my team this year, they’re like, ‘Oh, we want to go to the Final Four.’ I’m like, ‘Well, what about the Elite Eight?’ My whole life, I’ve not had a chance to skip steps. In basketball terms, I tell people all the time, some people get an open layup, a fast break. But I’ve always always had to Eurostep or, or pro-hop into scoring. Or get the three-point play the old fashioned way. That’s just been my life.”

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Coach Yo also shared what was going through her mind last season in a closely-fought game between Mississippi and South Carolina: “Am I going to beat my mentor?” But the impact Dawn Staley has had on her is clear.

“Dawn is unique, and she has taught me a lot, but she’s also an ultimate competitor,” McPhee-McCuin said. “And so she wants to beat everybody and has taught me to understand the art of competitiveness and competing — but while still having a platform and being strong about it and being unapologetic about, speaking on that platform , believing in it, and following through with it.”

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