NEW ORLEANS — Two things were obvious from Wednesday’s women’s basketball interviews at Sun Belt Basketball Media Days—that the conference has reloaded since last year’s Sun Belt Women’s Basketball Championship and that every team is ready to return to that Pensacola-based event, and not just because of the championship trophy and the chance to cut down the nets.
The majority of the league’s 14 head coaches who spoke Wednesday think their teams will be improved, mostly due to the arrival of newcomers, and a lot of those new faces joined their squads as transfer players.
“Some of the teams that ended up near the bottom of our conference, they really changed things around through the portal,” said Troy head coach Chanda Rigby, whose squad was picked second in the league’s preseason coaches poll announced ahead of Sun Belt Basketball Media Days. “Some really great athletes have been recruited into our conference.”
Defending champion James Madison, which received nine of the 14 first-place votes and tops the preseason poll, also has a large group of six newcomers to join a solid returnee class in an effort to better last year’s 26-8 record.
“We reloaded for what we lost really well,” said Dukes head coach Sean O’Regan, whose squad won the conference tournament and earned an NCAA Tournament berth—its first since the 2015-16 season. “I’ve been pretty stunned at this group’s experience and what they’ve carried over, and I’m excited to see where we go.
“We have nine players entering their fourth or fifth year collegiately, that’s a pretty experienced group. Even our four transfers that we pulled in, one’s entering her third year and the rest are entering at least their fourth year.”
The Dukes return eight players from the championship squad that cut the nets down in the Pensacola Bay Center last March, and collected 186 points in the coaches poll. Troy had three first place votes and 177 points, and Southern Miss was third with 159 points after sharing last year’s regular-season title with James Madison and Texas State when the Dukes were upset by Marshall on the final day of the regular season.
“We needed the pieces to fall right last year,” said Southern Miss senior guard Domonique Davis, the preseason pick as Sun Belt Player of the Year. “We knew the opportunity was there and we had to take care of our business. That’s not the way we want it to go this year, we don’t want to rely on anybody else.”
Davis averaged over 18 points a game to rank third in the league and had double-figure points in 27 games a year ago. She led a veteran Preseason All-Sun Belt First Team that included Georgia Southern senior guard Terren Ward, Arkansas State junior guard Izzy Higginbotham, Troy senior guard Makayia Hallmon and Marshall senior guard Roshala Scott.
James Madison had both Peyton McDaniel, the Sun Belt Sixth Woman of the Year last season, and Kseniia Kozlova on the Preseason All-Sun Belt Second Team, to go with the highly-touted set of newcomers. Those factors contributed to the Dukes being tabbed as the preseason favorite.
“I’d love to say the preseason poll doesn’t matter, and it really doesn’t,” O’Regan said, “but we used it as such motivation last year after we were picked sixth. So I can’t sit here and talk out of both sides of my mouth. It’s what your peers think about your team. I don’t think the poll means as much as winning the championship the year before, because if you do that you’ve got a target on your back anyway. But it doesn’t help you start 1-0, 2-0, it doesn’t give you a 10-point lead in your first game.”
“It’s no added pressure,” McDaniel said. “We know we have the target on our back after we won it last year. But we play with a chip on our shoulder every game anyway.”
McDaniel was part of the unanimous support Wednesday from the league women’s basketball head coaches and student-athletes who took part in Media Day activities at the Superdome, the New Orleans-based home of the Sun Belt Conference.
“The honest truth, Peyton’s been crushing over Pensacola since we left there,” O’Regan said. “It’s an awesome place to play a tournament. I had never been a part of men’s and women’s basketball playing together, but I think it works well and it’s an added benefit to the fans.
“I thought it would be a distraction to stay on the beach, but now I think it’s a perfect way to take mental breaks for the players. Other places you’re stuck in a hotel room, what are you going to do, walk the halls. Here, if you have an hour before a team meeting, take a walk on the beach, breathe the air. I think it’s refreshing. Obviously for us it’s special because we’re undefeated in Pensacola.”
“I would put our conference tournament up against anybody’s as far as the experience we have in Pensacola,” Rigby said. “The people in Pensacola want us there. I’ve been in other conference tournaments where you were fighting to get a gym for extra practice and things like that, but everybody there is very accommodating. It doesn’t hurt that the men and women are together, because fans want to come and support both teams and have a great vacation at the most beautiful beaches in the world.”
Sun Belt Conference play begins on Saturday, Dec. 30. Teams will play an 18-game regular-season conference schedule with games being played primarily on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
The season will culminate with the 2024 Sun Belt Women’s Basketball Championship at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Fla. from March 5-11, 20224. All games will air on ESPN+ with the title tilt broadcast nationally on ESPNU.