Even though the WNBA season is over, basketball fans still have plenty of hoops to watch, as the NBA regular season and college basketball have just begun.
The women’s season officially commenced on Nov. 1 with Villanova and Notre Dame squaring off in Rome at the Palazzetto dello Sport.
With only one game scheduled on Sunday, numerous schools across the country opened their seasons the next day, including six Missouri Valley Conference teams.
In the MVC preseason rankings, Murray State was the clear-cut favorite, receiving 41 of 44 first-place votes. Coming off back-to-back MVC titles, can the Racers three-peat?
That will be answered over the next four months and 110 conference matchups before Arch Madness on March 3-7.
That said, here are our preseason power rankings for the MVC women’s basketball teams.
1. Murray State
Utter domination is the best way to describe Murray State’s performance in conference play last year. Of the five 100-point performances in conference play last year, the Racers own four. Averaging 12 more points per game than any other Valley team, Murray State raced right through their opponents en route to a 19-1 conference record.
Murray State’s 31-4 overall record earned three unique accolades last season. First, it broke the program record for most wins for the second season in a row. Secondly, it marked the second time in MVC history that a Valley team eclipsed the 30-win mark. Finally, 31 wins were the sixth-most total in the nation.
Their superior play on the court was reflected in the conference awards when the Racers took home three of the seven honors, including Halli Poock winning Player of the Year, Sharnecce Currie-Jelks capturing Newcomer of the Year and Rechelle Turner claiming Coach of the Year.
The scariest aspect is that Murray State retained its top four scorers from last year, including one and two: Poock and Currie-Jelks. Now in their senior campaigns, the sky is the proverbial limit for this roster’s talent.
2. Illinois State
The Redbirds finished their 2025-26 season as the runners-up in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. They had the second-best season in the MVC, and with seven players returning, they’re going to stay competitive.
Among the returners, junior Trista Fayta and senior Neveah Thomas are players to watch. Fayta is a productive guard and Thomas is returning from injury after being one of the best players on the team during the 2024-25 season.
The bigger story, however, might be who ISU recruited this year. Danyella Mporokoso was the 2025-2026 Gatorade Illinois Girls Basketball Player of the Year, and she is set to make an immediate impact on an established team, potentially pushing them to even greater heights.
3. Belmont
Finishing a distant second in the conference behind Murray State last year, Belmont has a lot of expectations to live up to if they still want to be ahead of the pack.
The biggest question mark is on offense. In the 2025-26 season, the Bruins relied on a trio of players for the bulk of their offensive production. Sophomore Hilary Fuller and juniors Jailyn Banks and Avery Strickland all averaged double-digit points with good three-point efficiency.
None of them returned to the team this year.
Replacing that level of production will likely be a struggle, but Belmont is trying to get back on its feet by recruiting a slew of transfers. The most notable of which is graduate guard Kenley McCarn. Her three years at the University of Tennessee at Martin produced over 1,500 career points.
To keep their edge, the Bruins need players like McCarn to contribute right away.
4. Northern Iowa
Already the winningest coach in MVC history with 357 victories, head coach Tanya Warren has sparked success in each of her 19 seasons with the Panthers. Going into her 20th season, however, she will not have a crucial four-year player to rely on.
A big proponent of UNI’s trip to the semifinals in the conference tournament was Defensive Player of the Year, Ryley Goebel. The third Panther in program history to earn this accolade, Goebel is the only player with 200-plus blocks and steals in MVC history.
Fortunately, UNI will see the return of last year’s top scorer, Jenna Twedt. Finishing as the 13th-highest scorer in the MVC, Twedt averaged 14.7 points. Specializing beyond the arc, she finished just behind Kaylen Nelson, who led all three-point categories.
With Nelson gone, Twedt is in prime position to take the three-point crown and lead her team throughout the season.
5. Drake
In 2024, the Bulldogs firmly established themselves as one of the MVC’s premier teams. In 2026, they’re just trying to keep their heads above water.
The team started last season by shifting to a much younger roster; however, that roster struggled to stay intact as injuries plagued the team. Many players, like current sophomores Mylea Monahan and Mya Crawford, were expected to be crucial to the team’s success, but ended up missing nearly the entire season.
The good news is the team is healthy this year and has managed to return 10 players. If Drake plans to get back to the position they were in just two years ago, they need to have a massive bounce-back year.
And as long as they stay healthy, it’s possible.
6. UIC
Despite a season where they struggled to build momentum, the Flames have a future to look forward to. They won their first MVC conference championship game since 2017 and now have a promising core to build around.
The biggest piece is junior Jessica Carrothers. She was First-Team All-MVC last year and put up an impressive 18 points per game on 50% shooting. She is easily one of the best players in the entire conference. This rebuild has to run through her.
The team credits head coach Ashleen Bracey with Carrothers’ development, and they hope she can keep developing players as the team adds nine new roster members, including junior Salma Khedr.
Hailing from Giza, Egypt, she has represented both her home country and the United States at the youth national level, and the Flames are hoping she can be their next big star.
7. Bradley
It is a new era on the Hilltop, as the Braves have welcomed Chaia Meier as the 11th head coach in program history after Kate Popovec-Goss took over Boston College’s women’s basketball program.
Bradley will need all 16 years of Meier’s experience, as the Braves lost some crucial players from last season. Most notably, MVC’s best three-point shooter, Kaylen Nelson, graduated. Other noteworthy departures include seniors Amy O’Hara, Tamia Perryman and Freshman of the Year Maya Foz, who transferred to Grand Canyon University.
However, Bradley has returned much of its core, headlined by point guard Mya Wardle, daughter of Bradley men’s basketball coach Brian Wardle. Additionally, the Braves are excited to see one of their athletes return to the court this year: Inia Jones.
Jones looks to play her first minutes as a Brave after consecutive injuries kept the highly-touted high school prospect off the court.
8. Indiana State
As mentioned above, there were five 100-point performances specifically between MVC teams last year. Indiana State was on the receiving end of the three highest: 115, 114 and 105 points. The worst defense in the MVC allowed an average of 83.7 points overall and 86.8 points in conference action.
The bright spot was the offense. Overall, the Sycamores posted 74.6 points per game throughout the season, the second-best mark in the conference. A figurative glass cannon, Indiana State had the firepower to offset its lackluster defense.
Unfortunately, the Sycamores were ravaged by turnovers, as they returned only two players from last year’s roster. They lost team chemistry, but hope to make up for it with experience. With only one freshman, everyone else is a junior or older.
9. Southern Illinois
Four teams were clearly the worst in the conference last year; Southern Illinois was one of them. They won only a third of their regular-season games, with just three non-conference victories.
But the team has been trending upward. Fifth-year head coach Kelly Bond-White has kept a somewhat stable roster with improving offensive output, even as the defense still seems to lag behind.
Senior guard Kayla Cooper is the only returning player from last season who averaged more than 10 points per game. She, along with nine new recruits and only four other returning players, needs to get something going early, or this is going to become another season where Southern Illinois struggles.
10. Evansville
Evansville hasn’t finished a season with a winning record since 2008. They haven’t had a winning record in the MVC since 2014. Last year, they finished second to last in the conference – only because Valparaiso had a historically bad year and never won a single game.
They almost went to the NCAA tournament.
Their iconic run to the MVC championship final against Murray State is one of the few bright spots in a decades-long stretch of bad years. With a new head coach in Ben Wierzba, Evansville hopes to finally turn things around.
However, with so much of last year’s roster gone, including all-MVC junior guard Camryn Runner, a winning season is still an uphill battle.
11. Valparaiso
Entering her second season as head coach, Courtney Boyd is still searching for her first win as a Beacon. Yes, you read that correctly. Last season, Valparaiso finished 0-32 with a negative 25.9-point margin — the second-worst mark in the nation.
Scoring only 55.6 points per game, the Beacons struggled to build momentum as teams consistently piled on points game after game. Luckily for them, the true beacon of light, freshman Allia von Schlegell, returned for her sophomore campaign.
An MVC All-Freshman team member, von Schlegell finished the 2025-26 season with the third-most points for a freshman in Valparaiso history. One of only two players to average more than 10 points per game last year, von Schlegell needs to be the centerpiece of the squad if they want to remotely compete this year.
