(EDITOR’S NOTE: Ole Miss women’s basketball road through the 2022 NCAA Tournament runs through one of the toughest places to play in the whole sport. The Rebels earned a No. 7 seed in the Wichita Regional on Sunday night, setting up a first-round matchup against No. 10 seed South Dakota. One thing is certain: Given the fact that Ole Miss’ head coach is Jolett McPhee-McCuin, more likely than not every Bahamian basketball fan will be pulling for Ole Miss. McPhee McCuin, who was born and grew up in Freeport, Grand Bahama, is the daughter of legendary Bahamian basketball coach Gladstone “Moon” McPhee, who just celebrated his 76th birthday on Sunday, March 13, an NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship would certainly be a great birthday gift for her father. No. 7 Ole Miss vs. No. 10 South Dakota play at Waco, Texas, on Friday, March 18, at 1:30 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPN2)
For those Bahamians who are not familiar with the remarkable accomplishments of Yolett McPhee-McCuin, here’s a feature story published on the University of Mississippi website:
OXFORD, Mississippi — Head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin entered her fourth season with the Rebels in 2021-22, bringing with her a rejuvenated spirit and energy to the historic Ole Miss women’s basketball program.
In the span of just three years, McPhee-McCuin — a 17-year veteran of the coaching industry more commonly known as Coach Yo — has turned Ole Miss into an exciting team on the rise. The energy around Oxford is palpable, due in part to Coach Yo’s positive attitude and generous spirit with fans and supporters, but also due in large part to a historic 2020-21 campaign that revitalized the fanbase and put the Rebels into the national conversation.
Ole Miss bounced back from an 0-16 SEC season in 2019-20 to a 15-12 (4-10 SEC) campaign in 2020-21 that saw the Rebels come dangerously close to crashing the Big Dance. The Rebels knocked off three top-25 teams in the span of a month — including a season-sweep of nationally ranked Kentucky and a momentous upset of No. 13 Arkansas in the First Round of the SEC Tournament to mark the first SEC Quarterfinal appearance for Ole Miss since 2010. The Rebels nearly knocked off No. 14 Tennessee in that quarterfinal, which would have marked the first SEC Semifinal appearance since 1993 and likely would have pushed the Rebels into the NCAA Tournament.
The Rebels were on the outside looking in on the Big Dance despite ending the regular season with a NET of 43, five NET top-100 wins, four NET top-50 wins and a brutal final stretch that included going 4-4 in their last eight games against an average NET of 16.8 (with only two games at home). But Coach Yo and Ole Miss took that chip on their shoulder into the WNIT with a fury, advancing all the way to the championship game after playing superb team basketball — the furthest postseason run in program history regardless of tournament. Ole Miss fell to a dominant Rice squad in that title game, but that could do little to dampen the spirits of a program with its sights set on even higher bars in the years to come.
Much of the success for the Rebels in 2020-21 came in the form of Honorable Mention All-American and First-Team All-SEC member Shakira Austin, who immediately asserted herself as one of the most feared players in the SEC and the nation after transferring to Ole Miss from Maryland in the offseason. Austin was the first First-Team selection for Ole Miss since 2014-15 and ended up on the Lisa Leslie Top-10 list, but she wasn’t alone. Ole Miss’ highly-touted top-ranked recruiting class from 2019 lived up to the hype in their first season, with Madison Scott earning SEC Freshman of the Year honors and Snudda Collins being named alongside her on the SEC All-Freshman team.
The swift turnaround is even more impressive when taking stock of where the Rebels were when she took over. Coach Yo took the reigns of a Rebel program her first year in 2018-19 that had just four returners and willed it to outperform all the preseason polls that had picked Ole Miss unanimously to finish last. The Rebels improved their SEC win total by two games from the year before, winning three conference contests – one of which was a thrilling 55-49 win at No. 16 Kentucky on Jan. 13, 2019. The win was the first over a ranked team on the road for Ole Miss since 2011 and the first win in general at UK since 2007.
McPhee-McCuin also mentored graduate transfer Crystal Allen, who in her lone season donning a Rebel jersey became one of the most electrifying players in the SEC. Allen finished the season third in the conference at 18.3 PPG and was named second-team All-SEC – the first Rebel to earn All-SEC honors since 2014-15.
She followed that up by signing the SEC’s top-ranked recruiting class in 2019-20, which included two five-star signees and the first McDonald’s All-American in Ole Miss women’s basketball history in Madison Scott.
Coach Yo was named the Rebels’ ninth head coach on April 4, 2018, the first black female head coach in Ole Miss women’s basketball history.
“I am extremely humbled and grateful for the opportunity to be the women’s basketball coach at the University of Mississippi,” McPhee-McCuin said. “Once I stepped on campus, there was no doubt in my mind that Ole Miss had the potential to be a force to reckoned with — not only in the SEC, but nationally as well.”
McPhee-McCuin spent the previous five seasons transforming Jacksonville into a perennial power in the Atlantic Sun Conference. During her tenure as head coach, McPhee-McCuin led the Dolphins to a 94-63 record (50-24 in ASUN play) and postseason appearances in each of her last three seasons.
McPhee-McCuin, who has also served as the national team head coach for her native Bahamas, took over a program at Jacksonville that had only won 20 or more games in a season twice in its entire history and proceeded to march the Dolphins to three-straight 20-win campaigns in her final three years.
In 2015-16, McPhee-McCuin and the Dolphins made history, capturing the program’s first ASUN Tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth with an upset in the conference championship game over two-time defending champion Florida Gulf Coast. The victory snapped FGCU’s seven-year, 71-game home streak against ASUN opponents and boosted Jacksonville to a 22-11 record.
McPhee-McCuin’s team followed that up with two more 20-win seasons and the first two WNIT appearances in JU history in 2016-17 (23-9, 11-3 ASUN) and 2017-18 (24-9, 12-2) with the final season seeing the Dolphins break the school record for single-season wins. In 2016-17, Jacksonville was the lone ASUN program to receive votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll and earned the first WNIT at-large ever given to an ASUN team.
Prior to her time at Jacksonville, McPhee-McCuin was an assistant at Clemson from 2011-13, where she was recognized as one of the top assistants in the nation by National Women’s Basketball Insider. While with the Tigers, McPhee-McCuin solidified her reputation as one of the best recruiters in the country, spearheading the No. 16 class in the nation in her final year at Clemson, which included five McDonalds All-America nominees.
Before her stint at Clemson, McPhee-McCuin was on staff at Pittsburgh for two seasons in 2009 and 2010. She was part of a pair of postseason appearances with Panthers, who rose to No. 14 in the national rankings and advanced to a Sweet 16.
Her coaching career also includes stops at Portland, Frank Phillips College and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, where she earned her master’s degree in physical education with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
McPhee-McCuin received her bachelor’s in business management and administration from Rhode Island in 2004, playing in 56 games over her junior and senior years at URI and helping the Rams advance to the 2003 A-10 title game. She played her first two seasons at Miami-Dade Community College.
In addition to her collegiate coaching duties, McPhee-McCuin has served as the head coach for Bahamian national team since 2013. Her crowning achievement was the first Caribbean Basketball Confederation title for Bahamas in 10 years after a 55-51 win over Jamaica to qualify for the 2016 CentroBasket Championship. The success capped a very successful tournament outing with a perfect 5-0 record, and McPhee-McCuin became the first female coach to win a CBC title.
McPhee-McCuin was the first Bahamian woman to sign a Division I letter of intent to play basketball, becoming a trailblazer in the process for other aspiring athletes from her home country. She is the first Bahamian woman to coach at a Division I program, and was the first black female head coach at Jacksonville.
McPhee-McCuin is also part of two Halls of Fame across both her playing and coaching career. In 2016, she was inducted into the Bahamian Athletic Hall of Fame alongside Buddy Hield (of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings) and Jonquel Jones (of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun). In 2013, she was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame and was one of 10 recipients of the Pathfinder Award for their distinguished achievement outside of New England.
An active member of the coaching community, McPhee-McCuin is a member of the “So You Want to be a Coach” program through the WBCA, and she holds membership in the Women of Color Association. In 2013, McPhee-McCuin joined the Center of Coaching Excellence’s yearly class.
Throughout her coaching career, McPhee-McCuin has had a large impact in every community in which she has coached. She developed a foundation in the Bahamas called Back2Basics, which helps the development of children through education and athletics. Additionally, she was involved in numerous community service projects at her other coaching stops.
In addition to the growth she has facilitated on the court throughout her career, McPhee-McCuin and her staff have instilled an importance on community dialogue with fans and supporters.
Coach Yo also puts an emphasis on teaching, developing and inspiring through character-building and leadership development, as best evidenced by her trademark motto #NoCeilings, which serves as a rallying cry both within the program and to those familiar with her in the basketball community. Her point of emphasis with #NoCeilings is to preach a way of life, especially to young women, about living without limits to what can be achieved both on the court and in life.
Born April 30, 1982, the former Yolett McPhee and her husband, Kelly McCuin, have two daughters: Yasmine and Yuri.
EDUCATION
Bachelor’s in Business Management and Administration — University of Rhode Island, 2004
Master’s in Physical Education — University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 2007
HALLS OF FAME
Bahamian Athletic Hall of Fame, Class of 2016
New England Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2013
