Women’s SEC Power Rankings for Jan. 9: Are Lady Vols No. 1?

The Ole Miss Rebels scored a close home win over the Florida Gators, and holding onto that to avoid being winless in the conference is the only reason they’re not at the bottom of our SEC Power Rankings. After all, despite their 11-5 record, like Florida they have played nobody.

According to the RPI, the Rebels have played the No. 152 ranked strength of schedule to this point. They’ve failed to score even one win against a Top 100 RPI opponent yet, which is a major embarrassment.

And if they can’t begin to consistently win at a higher level, it might be time to question Matt Insell and the job he’s doing there. This has not been a good start for the Rebels women’s basketball team in conference play.

Now, in fairness, these guys will have their schedule strength pick up as more conference games are played. And they do have 11 wins. So now, it’s just time for them to pick up some big wins in the SEC.

Over the next five games, they play the Mississippi State Bulldogs twice, the Missouri Tigers and the Tennessee Lady Vols. In the middle is another match-up against Florida. That ought to be enough to boost this team’s schedule ranking and give them at least a couple of more wins.

To even be more fair to these guys, they did open conference play with a heartbreaking loss. That was to a team that is currently one spot ahead of them in our SEC Power Rankings.