In a season of make or break, sometimes the most valuable advice comes from just down the hall. For Ole Miss women’s basketball coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, that’s exactly what happened after a tough two-game skid.

While the women’s program dropped consecutive SEC games for the first time in the 2025-26 NCAA season, the men’s side has been battling through its own prolonged skid. And in the middle of that stretch, coach Sampson recently offered a perspective that resonated beyond just his locker room.

“Losing has never bothered me that much because losing is part of the journey,” he said. “Now we win around here so much that sometimes you forget that we can lose too. When you win 30 games 4-5 yrs in a row, flip conferences & you’re still winning, you assume it’s easy. It’s not.”

His statement comes as the Rebel men navigate a nine-game losing streak, searching for rhythm in a tough stretch. And for McPhee-McCuin, who is facing her own adversity after consecutive SEC losses, the message landed at the right time.

Not long after, coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin reposted Sampson’s clip on X with a message of her own.

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“Yes! This! Yes! This is the first time we’ve lost two games in a row this season, and now the world is supposed to end, right? Come on, man! Rocking with Team 51! Two more games in reg season! #HottyToddy ❤️💙 #GIVE”

The Rebels’ latest setback came against the No. 3 South Carolina Gamecocks, who handed Ole Miss an 85-48 loss at Colonial Life Arena.

On paper, the margin was wide. But on the floor, the fight was there.

Christeen Iwuala recorded her 11th double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds, which became the most by a Rebel in a single season since Madison Scott in 2022-23. On the other hand, Latasha Lattimore added three blocks, which marks the 12th time this year, where she’s swatted at least that many shots in a game.

Because of them, Ole Miss stayed within striking distance, as they forced six turnovers in the opening frame and trailed by just four entering the second. But depth, pace, and shot-making eventually tilted the game. South Carolina’s pair of three-pointers before halftime stretched the lead to double digits, and the Gamecocks never looked back in the second half.

Fatigue also played a major role in their defeat, as the Rebels wrapped up a demanding stretch of five games in 10 days.

But that’s exactly where McPhee-McCuin’s message matters most. Two losses, even lopsided ones, don’t erase months of work. And they certainly don’t define a group that has positioned itself for postseason play in one of the toughest conferences in the country.

Yolett McPhee-McCuin Charts the Rebels’ Path Forward After Back-to-Back Losses

With two regular-season games remaining, the Ole Miss Rebels don’t have the luxury of lingering on what happened in Columbia.

For their next game, the Rebels will travel to Birmingham, Alabama, for a matchup against the Florida Gators on Feb. 26 at Legacy Arena at the BJCC. This game will take place at a neutral site that carries major seeding implications.

After that, they will return to Oxford for their regular-season finale against the Texas A&M Aggies on March 1.

At 21-8 overall and 8-6 in the SEC, Ole Miss remains firmly in the NCAA Tournament picture. But positioning is everything now. A top-four SEC finish would secure a double-bye in the conference tournament, and with Greenville looming, that extra rest could be the difference between a quick exit and a deep March run.

“This opportunity that we’re faced with does allow us to build our debt,” coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said in a post-game interview after the loss to Gamecocks. “And so I kind of look at it like that. You know, anybody who counts us out can’t count, you know, because if y’all think that Dawn thought they was just gonna blow us out like she, first of all, she don’t even move like that. Second of all, the brand of basketball we’ve been playing like, you cannot take us lightly, and so I just think we get through these next two games, we figure out a way to win those.”

She further added, “We reset. We go in the SEC tournament, and I feel like I made it clear about how I feel about the tournament and how grueling it is on us, and then we rest and we prepare for March. And if we get to host, great, we know what that feels like. And if we got to go on the road, we’ve beaten Oklahoma on the road, we beat Vandy on the road, like we’ve won games on the road. So it’s nothing for us. We’ll be ready to make a deep run.”

The next two games aren’t just about wins; they’re about setting the tone and correcting their mistakes.

Every possession, every defensive stop, every rebound matters. And if this team shows the grit they’ve displayed all season, those back-to-back losses will be little more than a footnote on a resume still being written.