February 6, 2025
Dawn Staley Calls Comment About Ole Miss Coach A ‘Personal Attack’
Coach Staley and Coach Yo are not here for the disrespect from the announcer. The Ole Miss coach says she's "truly grateful" for her growth.
South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley publicly defended Yolett McPhee-McCuin after an announcer made a shady comment about the Ole Miss women’s basketball coach during Sunday’s game against Vanderbilt.
After McPhee-McCuin called a timeout for Ole Miss with just 54.7 seconds remaining of Sunday’s face-off against Vanderbilt, announcer Andrew Allegretta had a select choice of words to describe the 42-year-old’s coaching style. “I say this respectfully,” Allegretta said in a clip from the live stream. “And she’s done an incredible job. She has three consecutive NCAA tournaments. I can see why some of Coach Yo would be an acquired taste. It’s a lot of bombastic motions on the sideline and all of that sort of stuff. Working the officials. Timeouts when you’re up by, what, 15 points. All of that sort of stuff.”
Allegretta, Vanderbilt’s director of radio broadcasting, called the game alongside Drew Maddux for SEC Network+.
Coach Staley, a three-time NCAA champion and the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball, as previously mentioned by BLACK ENTERPRISE, took Allegretta’s comment about McPhee-McCuin as a personal attack.
“Woke up this [morning] to this and came back to it because it’s just wrong,” Staley wrote on X. “A personal attack on one of our[s] is a personal attack on all of us, including who you are broadcasting for.” She tagged the Ole Miss coach in her post with a reminder for McPhee-McCuin to keep being her “authentic self,” followed by a quick message for the Vanderbilt announcer: “Broadcaster, keep being yourself because we see you!”
McPhee-McCuin has been with The Rebels for 17 years and stood by her decision to call the last-minute timeout. On X, she explained that she was trying to avoid a turnover. “We were being pressed with 15 [seconds] to go,” she wrote. However, as for the disrespect from Vanderbilt announcers, Coach Yo feels the behavior was “classless, unnecessary, and uncalled for.” She stated on Sunday night that she is “truly grateful” for her growth “in these days and times.”
The Ole Miss coach and her team walked away with the win against the Nashville team, 76-61. The game marked the 57th matchup between the two teams, with The Rebels boasting its longest winning streak in the series against The Commodores, which began in 1978.
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