Talaysia Cooper Hits Seven 3s for 29 as No. 21 Ole Miss Routs UAlbany 95-41

OXFORD, Miss. The first two games of the season had been about Ole Miss surviving its own slow starts. On Wednesday night the Rebels skipped that part entirely. Talaysia Cooper buried seven 3s on the way to 29 points, the defense took the ball away 27 times, and No. 21 Ole Miss led from the opening tip to the final horn in a 95-41 win over UAlbany on Nov. 11 at The SJB Pavilion.

Cooper made 10 of 16 shots, including 7 of 12 from deep, in just 23 minutes. Jaida Civil added 13 points, seven rebounds and three steals off the bench, Jada Richard scored 11 with a game-high eight assists, and Lauren Jacobs chipped in 10. Ole Miss moved to 3-0. UAlbany, which arrived on a three-game winning streak, fell to 3-1.

Here is the box score (opens in a new tab) and Ole Miss' recap (opens in a new tab).

No slow start this time

Against Alcorn State and North Alabama, Ole Miss needed a while to find its legs. Against North Alabama the Rebels actually trailed at the half. Yolett McPhee-McCuin responded by shuffling the starting five. "Well, we changed the lineup," McPhee-McCuin told the Oxford Eagle after the game. Cooper and Knisha Godfrey, both reserves against North Alabama, opened the game alongside Richard, Maya Anderson and Rachael Okokoh.

The effect was immediate. Ole Miss scored the first five points, led 13-2 at the first media timeout, and used an 8-0 burst later in the period to build a 22-8 lead after one quarter. The eight points UAlbany managed in the opening 10 minutes were the second fewest the Rebels have allowed in any quarter this season, per Ole Miss.

The Great Danes could not find anything from the perimeter. They went 0 for the first half from 3 and finished 2 of 15 from deep for the night.

Fifteen straight to bury it

If the first quarter put Ole Miss in control, the start of the second ended the competitive portion of the evening. Cooper and Richard drove a 15-0 run to open the period, turning a 14-point cushion into a 37-8 rout. Ole Miss took a 45-17 lead into the locker room, its most points in a first half this season.

That stretch showed both sides of what this roster can do. Richard, who finished with eight assists against one turnover, kept the ball moving, and Cooper kept finding space beyond the arc. When a defense is generating turnovers at that rate, the offense barely has to run a set.

The third quarter brought more of the same. The Rebels shot 50 percent from 3 in the period, scored 26 points, and carried a 71-33 lead into the fourth. UAlbany's best quarter came in the third, when it scored 16, but every bucket it got was answered. A 16-2 run in the fourth finished the job, and all 11 available Rebels got on the floor.

Cooper's career night

Seven made 3s is a career high for Cooper, and it tied for the fourth most in a single game in program history, according to the school. Cooper did it efficiently, too. Ten made shots on 16 attempts, 2 of 4 at the line, three steals, two assists and a block, all in 23 minutes, which means Cooper scored at better than a point per minute on the floor.

That line matters beyond the numbers. Cooper came off the bench against North Alabama and shot 2 of 10 that night, finding other ways to help with four assists and three blocks. A move into the starting lineup followed by a 29-point game is about as clean a response as a coaching staff could ask for.

The rest of the guards helped turn the night into a shooting exhibition. Anderson went 3 of 5 from deep, a season high in made 3s, for nine points while making the 50th start of a college career, per Ole Miss. Jacobs hit 3 of 5 from long range for 10 points in 13 minutes, matching a career high. As a team Ole Miss made 15 of 37 from 3, a season best and tied for the third most in a game in school history. The record is 17, set against Bowling Green on Nov. 26, 1999.

McPhee-McCuin's message on the shooting was simple. "They just need to take good shots. If they take good shots, they usually make them," McPhee-McCuin said, per the Oxford Eagle.

The defense set the terms

The scoreboard will draw the attention, but the pressure is what made this a 54-point game. UAlbany committed 27 turnovers, and Ole Miss turned them into 31 points, according to the Oxford Eagle. The Rebels finished with 16 steals while giving the ball away only nine times themselves. That is an 18-possession gap before a single shot is counted.

Jade Tillman led the way with four steals to go with nine points and five rebounds, going 5 of 6 at the line. Civil and Richard had three steals apiece, and Cooper matched them. Okokoh blocked two shots in 14 minutes, and Ole Miss finished with six blocks as a team.

UAlbany shot 15 of 53 (28.3 percent) and handed out just nine assists. Madison Roman and Daria Shishkina combined for 22 of the Great Danes' 41 points, and Alexia Bujold pulled down a team-high six rebounds. Ole Miss won the glass 46-38, grabbing 15 offensive boards.

The Rebels also moved the ball. Twenty-six assists on 33 made baskets is the kind of ratio that tends to follow a team that is getting stops, running, and making the extra pass when the defense collapses.

A deeper bench takes shape

With Cooper and Godfrey starting, Civil and Tillman came off the bench, and the reserves produced 39 points. Civil, who led Ole Miss with 17 in the opener against Alcorn State, was steady again in 23 minutes, making 5 of 9 shots. Doneelah Washington added seven points, six rebounds and three assists in 15 minutes, and Desrae Kyles grabbed five rebounds. Charleen Hudson did not score but had two assists in 12 minutes.

That depth comes from a roster that is still new together, and McPhee-McCuin has been open about how early the group is in the process. "Our team is new and I'm going to keep saying that, and it's not an excuse," McPhee-McCuin told the Oxford Eagle. Later, McPhee-McCuin added: "I feel like I'm in year one, two and three with the team."

Three games in, the pieces are starting to sort themselves out. Richard is the table setter. Cooper is the scorer who can break a game open from deep. Civil and Tillman can carry a second unit, and Washington and Okokoh supply size and activity inside. The challenge now is consistency, which is what the coaching staff was hunting for with the lineup change.

Milestones and what comes next

The 54-point margin was the largest for Ole Miss since a 102-34 win over Mississippi Valley State on Dec. 17, 2025. It was the program's first win over UAlbany, and it gave McPhee-McCuin the 246th win of a head coaching career. Ole Miss has now won 43 of its last 46 nonconference home games dating to 2020, per the school, and the 95 points were a season high.

The Rebels have now won three straight by a combined 117 points, following an 80-38 win over Alcorn State and a 72-51 comeback over North Alabama. The defense has forced 26, 30 and 27 turnovers in those games. The open question was whether the offense could keep up, and on Wednesday it did more than that.

For UAlbany, the trip south was a measuring stick that came up short in a hurry. The Great Danes will head into the rest of their nonconference slate needing to clean up ball security after a night when the pressure decided the game before the shooting did.

Ole Miss stays home and hosts Louisiana Tech on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. CT at The SJB Pavilion, with the game on SEC Network+.

The closing take

This was the version of Ole Miss the first two games only hinted at: suffocating on defense, unselfish in transition, and dangerous when the 3s fall. One night against an overmatched opponent does not settle every question, and the shooting will not always look like 15 of 37. But a coaching staff that changed the lineup and got a 29-point night from the player it moved in has reason to feel good about the direction. The Rebels finally looked like a team that knows what it wants to be.

Sources: ESPN, Ole Miss Athletics (olemisssports.com), The Oxford Eagle.

Photo: Ole Miss Athletics.