Confidence, reclaimed: How Christeen Iwuala’s early season rise is powering Mississippi’s hot start
Christeen Iwuala hasn’t always walked with the confidence she now carries onto the hardwood for No. 13 Mississippi. But in the quiet hours inside the Tuohy Basketball Center — long before crowds gather and cameras warm to life — she has built her sanctuary. It’s a place of repetition and rhythm, where free throws whisper through the net and layups go up and come down in steady sequence. It’s where she has shaped the player she believed she could become, even when no one else was watching.
Entering this season, the San Antonio native made a choice. She was done hesitating. She was done questioning shots she’d rehearsed for years. She was ready to trust the work.
“Why did I feel nervous going up for shots that I’d been repping out a bunch of times,” Iwuala told The IX Basketball during SEC TipOff in October. “I learned that I needed more confidence within myself.”
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Now in her second year in Oxford, after two seasons of limited minutes at UCLA, that belief has begun to bloom. Her relentless summer grind has started to reveal its return. And through the Rebels’ blistering 8-0 start, capped by Thursday night’s electric 69–62 comeback over No. 18 Notre Dame inside the roaring Sandy and John Black Pavilion, few players have fueled Mississippi’s rise more than Iwuala.
Yet early in the ACC/SEC Challenge showdown, Iwuala’s impact was limited as the Rebels fell into a 19-point hole with 5:05 left in the second quarter. She came into that game as one of just a handful of Rebels ever to score at least 10 points in each of the first seven games of a season, a mark last hit in 2020–21. She and Ohio State transfer Cotie McMahon were the only players this century to post double-figure scoring in seven straight games, a streak no Rebel duo had matched since at least 1998–99. But even after a late first half surge cut Notre Dame’s lead to eight at halftime, Iwuala had only six points and four rebounds.
Then the second half began.
It took only moments for Iwuala to shift gears. She attacked the glass with ferocity, powered through and finished at the rim with the conviction she had spent months cultivating in solitude. By the final buzzer, she had amassed 18 points and 13 rebounds — her fourth double-double of the season. Mississippi’s comeback wasn’t rooted in a strategic overhaul. It was a reclamation of identity, a team built on toughness, energy, defense, rebounding and resolve.
“… The only thought that we had going into the second half was let’s get back to what we do,” Iwuala said after the game. “Let’s get back to what we practice and finish this game and be tough. …
I wanted to win the game at the end of the day by any means. And so I felt like … when the rebound went up, that’s a 50-50, ball. I got to get that. Coach Yo made that very very permanent in halftime.”
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It’s only December, yet Mississippi — undefeated through its first eight games for the first time since 2000–01 — has already rewritten pieces of its own history. The start marks the first such streak in head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin’s tenure and only the 10th time in the program’s 51 seasons.
And while McMahon brings star power, Iwuala has emerged as a catalyst of this new-look roster. Her statistical surge ranks among the nation’s most striking. She’s averaging 17.5 points per game, 61.5% shooting, 3.5 made free throws, nearly six free-throw attempts and a dominant 9.5 rebounds per game with nearly four on the offensive glass alone.
To some, Iwuala’s rise may feel meteoric. To McPhee-McCuin, it was inevitable.
“… Christeen was a big-time basketball player [in high school], and then she went to UCLA and didn’t play as much,” McPhee-McCuin said after Thursday’s win. “… When that happens, it takes a while for you to get your confidence back. I always knew she was capable of doing this. … High character player, someone that I feel like people need to look at for the WNBA because of what she brings on and off the court.”
This Mississippi team is infused with a medley of nine newcomers, eight transfers from ESPN’s No. 2–ranked transfer class, one freshman and only three returning players. Potential? Overflowing. Experience together? Still forming. Thursday’s test against a top-25 opponent was the first of its kind for this group, and their coach knew it.
“This is our first top 25 game with this team,” McPhee-McCuin said. “…There was a lot of newness. … A lot of our players hadn’t been in this environment before. …People have been saying, Oh, they don’t know who we [Rebels] are, and I’m sure they’ll move the goal post again tonight. But as far as I’m concerned, this was a good win for us.”
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Wins like this one, in moments thick with adversity, are built on foundations formed in empty gyms and hours when no one is watching. Confidence is something you fight to grow. That’s where Iwuala lives. That’s where she sharpened the edges of the player who’s starting this season in commanding fashion.
And McPhee-McCuin believes the best version of her senior forward has yet to surface.
“… I think she’s going to continue to get this return [in her success] because of the deposit she puts in every single day,” she said.
As Mississippi pushes deeper into nonconference play and toward the daunting stretch of SEC play, the work of Iwuala continues to echo loudly on the court. She is no longer learning to trust her preparation. She is becoming the proof of it.
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