I am probably about as big a women's basketball fan as you'll find in Ole Miss fandom (Armintie Price got me on board). Even I had little hope for our season when it began or when we were 6-4 having squandered leads against every decent team we had played.

But I have to give a lot of credit to Renee Ladner and her staff (including new member Armintie Price) for ushering in some major growth since that time. We have won 8 of our last 9 including victories against two top fifteen teams (#12 LSU and #8 Georgia) and beat a good State team for the first time in a couple of seasons.

So that brings us to now. We're 14-5 (5-1) and on top of the SEC. Unfortunately it doesn't get any easier. We still have to play Tennessee twice, make return trips to State and LSU, and visit a very good Kentucky team. Road games at Arkansas and South Carolina are our best shots at stealing a couple more on the road. We would probably be favored to win home games against Auburn and Florida, while Vanderbilt is a tossup. I feel like we need to win 5 of the remaining 10 to make the NCAA tournament. Four might do it, but we'd be solidly on the bubble.

I am not yet expecting an NCAA tourney invitation, but at least we are in the conversation. This is a case of a team doing more with less, and that's always refreshing to see in Ole Miss athletics, where we too often witness the opposite.