The Ole Miss Rebels women's basketball suffered their third-straight loss in the final stretch of the regular season against the Florida Gators on Wednesday night.
The Rebs had it under control till a third-quarter total blindside injury hit them, and left them scrambling to put points on the board.
With 5:07 left on the clock in the third quarter, the officials stopped the game after seeing Ole Miss's Latasha Lattimore could not get up following the play after a Florida player fell on her leg.
At the time of her injury, Ole Miss was trailing Florida by six points. But losing one of their top scorers clearly affected Ole Miss, as the wheels started coming off right after.
Yolett McPhee-McCuin on how Latasha Lattimore's injury changed everything
In her post-game conference, Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin reported the injury as a sprain on her right leg, because of which Lattimore couldn't return for the game, and had to finish her night with just 5 points.
When asked whether Lattimore's exit played a part in the loss, Coach Yo's answer was pretty obvious.
“It was evident,” Coach Yo said post-game, per the Clarion Ledger. “One less person that can score the ball, but there’s no excuse.”
“My team is used to scoring a bunch of points, and a bunch of those points were on the bench, well, didn’t even play with Sira, and then (Lattimore) hurting herself,” McPhee-McCuin said. “… We’ve got to get back defensive-minded and figure out how to be stingy and just gut these games out until we can get people healthy.”
Part of the reason that Lattimore's injury affected the Rebels this much was Sira Thienou's absence. Coach Yo stressed how her absence made it worse and that she was not proud of her team falling apart due to two players sitting on the bench.
“Earlier in the year – and Sira is the head of that – we used to be a defensive team,” McPhee-McCuin added. “And now, because we’ve been scoring a lot of points, we’ve really got excited about that, and that’s just not our identity, and it can’t be our identity right now because we have people that are out.
While Lattimore's status for March Madness remains questionable, Coach Yo expects to have Thienou back.