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Two-time MVC champion Murray State is the overwhelming preseason favorite, led by reigning player of the year Halli Poock and a loaded roster.
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Murray State's women have won the Missouri Valley Conference two years running, and the league expects a third. The Racers took 41 of 44 first-place votes and 477 points in the MVC preseason poll released Oct. 13, about as clear as a preseason vote gets.
Illinois State finished a distant second with 396 points. Belmont took third with 375 and two first-place votes, while Northern Iowa claimed the last first-place vote and finished fourth with 343.
Rechelle Turner's team has won back-to-back MVC regular-season and tournament titles. Last season it went 31-4, the most wins in program history and the second-most in MVC history, as reported by The Murray State News' Zach Simmons.
The Racers went 19-1 in league play and did not lose from Jan. 23 until the NCAA Tournament, when Maryland ended the run 99-67 in the first round. Murray State had the nation's fifth-ranked offense going into that game, Simmons reported, and Halli Poock scored 27 points while Haven Ford and Keslyn Secrist each had 17.
Turner was named MVC Coach of the Year for the first time after guiding the Racers to their first outright regular-season title and a 28-3 record entering Arch Madness.
Poock is the reason the Racers start as heavy favorites. The guard from Waterloo, Iowa, was the MVC Jackie Stiles Player of the Year as a junior, the first Racer to win it. When the league named her, she led the MVC at 22.2 points a game and 25.5 in conference play, had scored 20 or more in 17 of 20 league games and owned a league-best six games of 30 or more. Her 688 points at that point already ranked 13th in MVC single-season history.
Sharnecce Currie-Jelks gives Murray State a second star. The MVC Newcomer of the Year averaged 17.4 points and 11.7 rebounds and led Division I with 26 double-doubles, including 16 in conference games and eight in a row to end the regular season.
Ford, now a senior guard, is back after scoring 17 points on 50 percent shooting against Maryland. Turner also added transfers Sydney Huber from Evansville and Claire Johnson from Nebraska.
Drake (317 points) and UIC (267) rounded out the top six in the MVC's women's preseason poll, which league coaches, communications directors and media voted on. Six of the Valley's 11 teams play on opening night, Nov. 2.
Murray State opens Nov. 2 at Southern Indiana in Evansville, Ind. The Racers then play Rice on Nov. 6 at 4 p.m. CT and Princeton on Nov. 8 at 11 a.m. CT in Richmond, Va., in the Opening Statement event, a partnership between the MVC, the American Conference, the Atlantic 10 and the Ivy League.
