Season glance: The women’s games 28-29

Just two games for this one.

After 27 games, I’ve got the Tigers at 15-12 overall and 4-8 in SEC play. So let’s take a quick look at Missouri’s matchups with Kentucky and Ole Miss.

With the Tigers three games over .500 with four games to go in my predictions, they only need one win to lock in a winning season.

Kentucky might be the right opportunity for it after coming off a 12-20 season with a 4-12 record in conference play.

The Wildcats suffered early-season losses to Austin Peay and Florida Gulf Coast last season before dropping matchups against NC State, Colorado, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Louisville in non-conference play.

Kentucky’s conference wins were against the Tigers, 76-71 on Jan. 21, Florida (81-77 on Feb. 18), Mississippi State (78-68 on Feb. 22) and Georgia (64-50 on Mar. 6 in the first round of the SEC Tournament).

Kentucky leads the all-time series with Missouri 12-5 and has won the past two matchups and five of the past six. Missouri last won 74-71 in Columbia in 2022.

Pretty bad year for the Wildcats, which is why they brought in coach Kenny Brooks from Virginia Tech.

Saniah Tyler, a 5-foot, 6-inch junior guard, is the highest-scoring returner from last year’s roster after starting 13 games and scoring 10.2 points per game.

Cassidy Rowe (5-5) started the most for Kentucky last season out of any returners with 16 starts. She averaged 2.6 points and 1.0 rebounds per game.

Brooks brought in a number of transfer recruits to fill those open spots.

Jordan Obi (6-1 graduate guard) from Penn., Georgia Amoore (5-6 graduate guard) who followed Brooks from Virginia Tech, Teonni Key (6-4 junior forward) from North Carolina, Dazia Lawrence (5-8 senior guard) from Charlotte, Gabby Brooks (5-10 sophomore guard) from Virginia Tech, Dominika Paurova (6-1 sophomore guard) from Oregon State, Clara Strack (6-5 sophomore center) from Virginia Tech and Amelia Hassett (6-3 junior forward) from Eastern Florida State College make up most of the roster.

Kentucky opens the season hosting USC Upstate on Monday and will play Louisville, Arizona State, Illinois, North Carolina and Purdue during non-conference play. I feel like Kentucky might be getting to conference play around .500 again.

The Wildcats get the easy part of the conference schedule off the bat with games against Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Florida, Auburn and Georgia to start, but then they hit the gauntlet leading up to the matchup with the Tigers.

I’m going to say Missouri wins this one and locks in a winning season.

The Rebels on the other hand …

Ole Miss enters the season ranked No. 20 by the AP after finishing last year with a record of 24-9 overall and 12-4 in SEC play with the losses coming in conference play to LSU, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Texas A&M.

The Rebels lost to Oklahoma in non-conference play, but beat Arizona and Michigan before losing to Louisville.

Ole Miss beat Missouri 66-45 on Feb. 26. But Missouri leads the all-time series 13-4 after winning 13 consecutive matchups from 2013 to 2021. Ole Miss has won the past three games in the series.

The Rebels beat Florida in their first SEC Tournament game, but lost to LSU in their second. Ole Miss earned a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament and beat No. 10 Marquette 67-66, then lost to No. 2 Notre Dame 71-56 in the second round.

Two of five players who started more than 20 games last year return for the Rebels in graduate guard/forward Madison Scott (6-2) and senior guard Kennedy Todd-Williams (6-0).

The Rebels brought in graduate guard Tameiya Sadler (5-7) who started 26 games in three years for Colorado and junior forward Christeen Iwuala (6-2), who averaged 3.3 points and 3.2 rebounds across two seasons at UCLA.

Ole Miss also added freshmen Heloisa Carrera (6-2 forward) from Brazil, Fatumata Djalo (5-10 guard) from Portugal, Jite Gbemuotor (6-2 forward) from Nigeria and Sira Thienou (6-0 guard) from Mali.

Quite the international scouting department at Ole Miss I guess.

The Rebels open the season playing USC in France on Monday, then will face UConn or Oregon State in the Baha Mar Championship and NC State in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

I’m not super impressed by the group Ole Miss brought in to replace three key starters, but I do think the Rebels still win this one.

A 1-1 stretch for the Tigers to get them to 16-13 overall and 5-9 in SEC play with just two games left before the conference tournament.

Head on over to the Tiger Walk to discuss this and so much more.