2025-26 BIG EAST preview

“Payouts are scheduled to start this year based on the outcomes of the tournament last March,” Ackerman explained. “Women’s basketball is truly enjoying a golden age thanks to some recent ignition but also due to the groundwork laid over many, many years by players, coaches, officials, executives, networks, sponsors, the NBA, the WNBA, USA Basketball, our core women’s basketball journalist team, and so many others, including people here in the audience at MSG today.

“That said, there’s so much room to grow,” Ackerman continued. “It’s my hope that the BIG EAST can do our part to provide the showcase our players, coaches and programs deserve and to help write exciting new chapters in the women’s basketball and women’s sports stories.”

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Like it has since its re-entry into the BIG EAST prior to the 2020-21 season, UConn secured the top seed in the conference preseason coaches’ poll. Read about each BIG EAST team, or skip to your favorite using the hyperlinks below. Unless otherwise hyperlinked, player statistics for team previews are from Sports-Reference, Her Hoop Stats or team media notes.

2025-26 BIG EAST women’s basketball preseason poll

UConn — 100 (10 first-place votes)
Marquette — 85
Seton Hall — 80 (1)
Villanova — 78
Creighton — 61
St. John’s — 56
Georgetown — 48
DePaul — 32
Butler — 30
Providence — 20
Xavier — 15

UConn

2024-25 season: 37-3 (18-0 BIG EAST), NCAA Tournament champions

Despite the major loss of All-American talent in Paige Bueckers, the defending champs start the season where they ended it last year — at the top. Anchored by graduate guard Azzi Fudd and sophomore sensation Sarah Strong, the Huskies are the AP preseason No. 1 team in the nation.

Perhaps the scariest development for UConn opponents this season? Sarah Strong, who, as a freshman, led the nation in player efficiency rating (41.3), box plus/minus (24.3), defensive win shares (4.8) and defensive rating (65.3), has returned even stronger and more versatile than her All-American freshman season. She is the BIG EAST preseason player of the year, and a preseason AP All-American.

“You think it’d be hard for her to make a big jump, because she’s already so good, but I feel like she really has,” Fudd told reporters about Strong, following UConn’s 84-67 exhibition victory over Boston College. “You can tell a difference in her confidence and also starting to hear her voice more that goes along with the confidence. But hearing her voice, hearing her direct people … has been great to see.”

In a case of the rich getting richer, 6’4 Wisconsin transfer Serah Williams, one of the most coveted transfers of the offseason, adds an elite post presence to UConn’s roster. With her one remaining season of college eligibility, the All-Big Ten talent has the chance to leave her mark on a program poised for a deep run in March.

“She’s pretty intense,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said of Williams. “She’s a really good rebounder. Obviously, she finishes around the basket for the most part. … She has a pretty good idea of how to use her size and athleticism, and ever since we started practice two weeks ago, she’s gotten better and better every day, and she works really well with Sarah Strong — those two have a really good connection … I don’t know how many minutes she played today… [she] should probably play a lot more in the future.”

How Auriemma’s exceptional evolution led UConn to a 12th title

Auriemma and his staff have lots of other elite talent to blend around UConn’s big three of Fudd, Strong and Williams — including junior guards and likely starters Ashlynn Shade and KK Arnold. UConn’s roster features significant depth and length as compared to past seasons, including returners in 6’5 center Jana El Alfy, 6’3 forward Ice Brady, and 6’2 wings Caroline Ducharme and Ayanna Patterson. Newcomers including 6’2 wing Blanca Quiñonez, BIG EAST Preseason Freshman of the Year Kelis Fisher and USC transfer Kayleigh Heckel will all compete for minutes in the season’s early phases. The challenge for UConn is not talent — it’s blending all of the talent into efficient and productive rotations that maximize each player’s strengths.

“[I] think sometimes people put way too much emphasis, obviously, on, you know, that kid’s a starter, that kids not,” Auriemma told reporters. “There’s probably more than five players on our team that you can say, ‘Get started’ and no one would be surprised. Whatever the starting lineup is, it may stay that way all year and may not — that’s another benefit of being a little deeper.”

However the rotations play out, the BIG EAST preseason favorites are well-positioned to also be the last team in the nation standing this April.

Marquette

2024-25 season: 21-11 (12-6 BIG EAST), WBIT second round

Don’t expect to see many shot clock violations from the Marquette Golden Eagles this season.

“Last year we played pretty fast — I think we were top 24% in the country — but we want to even get faster,” Marquette second-year head coach Cara Consuegra told reporters. ” … I think that our kids have really bought into how we want to play in transition. I mean, our goal is to score in six seconds or less every time. Our goal is to get the ball over half court two seconds or less.”

Marquette’s run-and-gun offense is charged by a dynamic trio of junior forward Skylar Forbes, junior guard Halle Vice and grad guard Lee Volker. Last season, Forbes averaged a team-high 15.8 points and 5.9 rebounds per game while leading the conference in free-throw percentage (90.9%). Vice averaged 11.5 points and a team-leading 7.4 rebounds per game while shooting nearly 50% from the floor. Volker averaged career-bests of 12.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game.

The Golden Eagles enter this season with tested chemistry as the only program in Division I to return all of its players from the 2024-25 season. That return rate reveals that last season’s BIG EAST Co-Coach of the Year Consuegra has built a culture worth staying for in just her second season at the helm. It’s part of why Volker chose to return for her fifth season, adding experience and leadership to an already locked-in roster.

“When Coach Cara came in [last season], it was kind of a natural fit being one of the older players who’s kind of more experienced. But this year, with two new freshmen and a transfer, I think all of us do a really good job, all of us returners kind of bringing them in, and they’re so eager to learn and be a part of this team that it’s easy,” Volker said.

Last October, the Golden Eagles were picked to finish 10th in the conference. The eight-spot jump to No. 2 in one season is a first in BIG EAST history. In just one season, Coach Consuegra has led the Golden Eagles back to their top-tier expectations maintained during the previous era under Megan Duffy. Still, the preseason rankings don’t mean much to a team used to doubters.

“It’s [not] something we really think about,” Volker told reporters. “And I think after last year being the opposite, I think we always play with the chip on our shoulder.”

Seton Hall

2024-25 season: 23-10 (13-5 BIG EAST), WBIT second round

The Pirates landed at No. 3 in the preseason poll and are the only other team in the conference to receive a first-place vote — from UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who cannot cast his vote for his own team. It’s high praise from the hall-of-famer, who no doubt can see the potential of a scrappy, Tony Bozzella-led squad.

“To get that first place vote means a lot … shows a lot of respect for the program. I mean, remember, we lost two starters — Faith Masonius, one of the best players to play here, and [I’Yanna] Lops, who never missed a game and played really well for us … [to] still be picked third says a lot about our returning players and about where the program is,” Bozzella told The IX Basketball.

While the Hall has lost significant pieces, it returns preseason All-BIG EAST guards Savannah Catalon and Jada Eads. Catalon, a junior, is a defensive dynamo for the Pirates, pressuring opposing offensives into quick decisions. She notched 71 steals last season while missing nearly a third of the regular season (nine games). On Feb. 8, she broke Seton Hall’s single-game steals record with a whopping 11 steals against Xavier. She’s also a consistent scorer (13.5 ppg) and showed she can put points on the board in a hurry with a career-high 36-point performance against DePaul last season.

Eads, now in her second season in South Orange, put the conference on notice last season, becoming the first player in Seton Hall history to earn First Team All-BIG EAST honors in her freshman season. She was a five-time BIG EAST Freshman of the Week and was BIG EAST Player of the Week on Dec. 30. In April, she was named Division I Rookie of the Year by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association.

👊🏼 👊🏾 pic.twitter.com/t8Z2q2WvsR

— Seton Hall Women’s Basketball (@SHUWBB) October 25, 2025

She’s ready to take the next step in her collegiate career, emphasizing the work she’s put in during the offseason to become a two-way player who is as disruptive on the defensive end as she is explosive on the offensive end. She also plays with a swagger and energy that powers her team, and acts as an extension of Coach Bozzella on the floor.

“Playing for a coach that wants to win, it’s like … all you want [from] a coach is a good person on and off the court … He wants you to win, he wants you to be in good spots to win, and be that good person,” Eads told The IX Basketball.

With a strong backcourt of Catalon and Eads, alongside newcomers including Texas transfer Jordana Codio, who gained Final Four experience with the Longhorns last season, Seton Hall is poised to assert itself as a top team in the conference, with an eye towards making the NCAA Tournament.

Villanova

2024-25 season: 21-15, (11-7 BIG EAST), WBIT semifinal

Now entering her sixth season as head coach of the Villanova Wildcats, Denise Dillon has proven to be one of the most successful coaches in the conference. She’s led Villanova to a 114-51 overall record (.690) and a 63-26 BIG EAST mark (.707), and reached the NCAA Tournament twice. The program reached historic heights with its first-ever 30-win season in 2022-23, a season capped off by a Sweet Sixteen finish.

Following the graduation of the school’s all-time leading scorer, Maddy Siegrist, in 2023, the Wildcats have been searching for a new identity, losing some key players to the transfer portal and recruiting future stars who are hungry to return the program to the NCAA Tournament, a destination not reached since the Siegrist era.

Coach Dillon shared that she feels her team, and the conference as a whole, is better positioned to make some noise this March following a season where just two teams (UConn and Creighton) made it to the Big Dance.

“We had a little bit high and low … really strong and a little bit of a drop off,” Dillon told reporters. “And now I think it’s back to where we wanted to be, with a number of teams having that ability [to reach] March Madness after the season finishes up. So it’s going to be extremely competitive. It’s going to be tough, and that’s what you want it to be — BIG EAST basketball.”

Villanova’s roster is headlined by sophomore guard Jasmine Bascoe, a unanimous selection to the preseason All-BIG EAST team. As a freshman, the Canadian led the Wildcats in scoring with a 16.2 points-per-game average while also leading the program in both assists (145) and steals (66). Alongside the experienced duo of senior forward Denae Carter and 6’4 grad forward/Notre Dame transfer Kylee Watson (returning from injury last season), the Wildcats have a solid core in place that could likely outperform it’s No. 4 preseason poll ranking.

As for the pressure of returning the program to its rightful place in the postseason? It’s not part of the Villanova vocabulary.

“No pressure,” Bascoe told The IX Basketball. “Just building off the last year … We’ve been waiting a while to play, so I just want to get started.”

Creighton

2024-25 season: 26-7 (16-2 BIG EAST), NCAA Tournament first round

It’s a new era in Omaha following the graduations of the program’s core three of Lauren Jensen, Morgan Maly and Molly Mogensen, the trio that accounted for 61.6% of the Bluejays’ scoring last season and were key to Creighton’s string of four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight finish in 2022. When asked about that roster turnover, Coach Jim Flanery refused to make any excuses.

“We have good seniors and good leadership. … [senior guards] Kennedy Townsend and Kiani Lockett have been really good players for us,” Flanery told reporters. “They’re going to step out of the shadows and kind of be the faces of our team, as is a six-year transfer Grace Boffeli from Northern Iowa … a couple time all-conference player, and then we have a really talented freshman class.”

Flanery and the Bluejays hope to pick up in the BIG EAST where they left off last season, in which they finished conference play 16-2 (losing only to UConn, twice) and a run to the conference tournament championship game. Coach Flanery has a meticulous approach to recruiting regional talent and blending it into his program’s read-and-react offensive system the facilitates team-orientated play.

“We just never really stop moving, which is tough to guard,” Townsend told The IX Basketball at media day. “And it’s a big reads-based offense, which takes time for the young kids to learn what the right read is. … Just like enforcing the correct reads and stuff like that, and just emphasizing player movement. … We don’t score a lot in the first half the shot clock. So with a younger team, using the whole shot clock and getting really great shots.”

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Flanery and his staff are relying on vets like Townsend and Lockett to bring the newcomers into the fold, and there are a lot of them. This team adds six true freshman, five hailing from the Bluejays’ typical Midwest recruiting paths, and one international player — 6’2 forward Tara Dacic from Belgrade, Serbia, who came to the states in 2024 to compete for Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco. Dacic’s experience with the Serbian national team eases her transition to the collegiate level, and adds height to roster with only four players above 6′ tall.

Creighton’s No. 5 preseason ranking suggests that the conference’s coaches are expecting some level of drop-off from season’s prior, but the Bluejays don’t see it that way. Their unifying goal is to reach a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament in the Spring.

“Making a run in our conference tournament, making a run to the [NCAA] tournament [are] definitely our goals that haven’t changed just because we have a huge turnover,” Lockett said.

St. John’s

2024-25 season: 16-15 (5-13 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinal

St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella has proven over the past few seasons to be a skilled transfer portal recruiter, attracting fresh, dynamic talent to Queens each offseason. This season, St. John’s replaces its top two scorers from last year — Lashae Dwyer and Ber’Nyah Mayo — who themselves arrived in Queens through the transfer portal. Dwyer spent one season with St. John’s following three seasons at Miami, and Mayo was a two-year impact player who spent her first three seasons at Massachusetts.

Tartamella and his staff always seem to execute on their recruiting plans, skillfully filling in roster gaps. He brought in several new pieces during the offseason to surround his presumed starting guard Skye Owen, who started 14 games as a junior last season and 6’2 senior forward Kylie Lavelle, who averaged 7.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game in 24.5 minutes per game in 2024-25, leading the team in field goal percentage (52.2%) and free throw percentage (84.0%).

“We have four transfers, a freshman, and then we have a JUCO [player], which we consider a transfer in, so we got five and then one freshman. So yeah, certainly we had to address areas that we felt we wanted to be bigger. So I think we did that in terms of getting length with the players that we brought in, [junior guards] Brooke [Moore] and Beautiful [Waheed] … Then we wanted to give [senior guard] Skye [Owen] help at the point, along with [Ariel] Little, and that’s where we brought in [graduate guard] Shaulana Wagner as well.”

St. John’s also added 5’11 sophomore forward Sa’Mya Wyatt, ASUN Freshman of the Year who last season ranked second amongst freshman in field goal percentage (56.4%) in NCAA Division I, trailing only UConn’s Sarah Strong. Miami transfer Daniela Abies adds rebounding abilities to the roster, and adds scoring depth at the wing position.

In the roster development department, St. John’s emphasis was to add more scorers to the roster who could provide offensive depth. Last season’s disappointing 16-15 finish can largely be attributed to close losses, often the result of scoring droughts in the final stretches of key games.

“I want to say we’re going to be a better shooting team than we were last year, which I think will help air out some of the offensive issues we had last year at times, and certainly droughts that we had. You look at last year, you lose, you know, eight games by 12 [total] points. You have chances to win those games, whether it’s the score or the stop, that most years that I’ve been here, we’ve had that, and for whatever reason, last year we just weren’t able to do it. So we’ve got to make sure we’re better in those moments where we have somebody we can go to, which we feel that we do, and then we also have those that can get a stop when we need it.”

Georgetown

2024-25 season: 12-19, (4-14 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinals

Hoyas head coach Darnell Haney did not mince words when asked about the expectations at Georgetown in his second official season as head coach.

“It’s top half of the league or bust … We’ve done a lot to bring in people in here that can help us, right? … We need to make sure that we do that,” Haney told The IX Basketball. “So everybody has in their mind at this table and back at home, we need to finish top half of the league, man, or bust.”

Coach Haney is used to exceeding expectations, leading the Hoyas to a 23-12 record and a BIG EAST Tournament championship run in 2023-24 — his first season at Georgetown. Last season, in a bit of a transition season for his team that saw the loss of team captain Graceann Bennett to graduation and Brianna Scott to injury, the Hoyas at times inconsistent offensive outputs contributed to a 12-19 record. Entering this season, they lost All-BIG EAST guard Kelsey Ransom to graduation last Spring but return key pieces in sophomore guard Khadee Hession, senior guard Victoria Rivera and 6’4 graduate Brianna Scott.

For Scott, the return back from a devastating ACL injury sustained during the 2024 BIG EAST Tournament semifinals has taught her to be a better teammate and student of the game.

“[I’m] really excited to be back — just seeing the game from outside looking in was very enlightening to see kind of like from a coach perspective, and just watch the game from the sideline. Not really necessarily having a physical impact on the game was really important for me to see, and [I] just know how my voice can also carry on to the court just as much as my actions. I feel like that was something that I learned while I was out,” Scott told The IX Basketball at media day.

Coach Haney shared that Scott is moving even better than before her injury, adding a critical post force to a Hoyas squad that will not settle for anything other than finishing in the top half of the conference standings. He believes that the conference may be sleeping on Scott, who aims to be one of the conference’s toughest bigs this season.

Let them know! Congrats to Victoria Rivera for earning @bigeast Preseason Honorable Mention!#HoyaSaxa #HoyaBold #HoyaTough #TheFamily #ODO pic.twitter.com/vndoTm45gJ

— Georgetown WBB (@GeorgetownWBB) October 21, 2025

Georgetown’s roster is also bolstered by key additions including Central Florida transfer guard Laila Jewett, Princeton transfer Chetanna Nweke, who missed all of last season to injury, and twin transfers Summer and Indya Davis. While the season and personnel may change, the culture of toughness and togetherness fostered by Haney and his coaching staff is now ingrained into the very fabric of a program on the rise.

“It starts from day one, when we get him here, day one, we have a meeting, and we talked about our standards, we talked about how we do things, and how we how we walk, how we talk, how we eat, how we do everything,” Haney told reports. “Man, and I think the newcomers were yearning for something like that, and they’ve been able to come in here, and they’ve grasped it well, grasped it with open arms — but it’s an ongoing effort. Every day we’re working on that. Every day we’re trying to make sure that our culture is intact and really good.”

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DePaul

2024-25 season: 13-19, (8-10 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament first round

In April of this year, Jill M. Pizzotti was named the sixth head coach of DePaul after serving on staff for 14 seasons including 11 as associate head coach. A veteran leader with over 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, including a 10-year head coaching stint at Saint Louis, Pizzotti spent last season as the program’s interim head coach, eventually taking over for long-time head coach Doug Bruno, who now assumes the role of special assistant to the vice president/director of athletics for women’s basketball.

“I just think [people are] going to see a more uptempo basketball team this year — a very competitive, resilient team that’s going to compete day in and day out,” Pizzotti told reporters.

The Blue Demons said goodbye to All-BIG EAST leading scorer Jorie Allen, who contributed 30.7% of the team’s scoring last season (20.0 ppg), scoring in double figures in each of DePaul’s games. Entering this season, senior guard Kate Clarke and graduate forward Meg Newman are expected to be key returning contributors, but will miss the early part of the 2025-26 season due to injuries.

In their absences, there is plenty of space for some of the team’s newcomers — which include one true freshman, local talent Gina Davorija, a 5’9 guard who earned Central Suburban Leauge (CSL) player of the year en route to a CSL championship. She also has international experience, representing the Serbian National Team at the 2024 U18 EURO Championships, helping the Serbians finish with a bronze medal to qualify for the 2025 World Cup.

Pizzotti and her newly-minted staff also went to work in the transfer portal, adding seven newcomers from schools including Morehead State, East Carolina, George Mason — just to name a few. One newcomer, Aizhanique Mayo, comes from fellow BIG EAST foe Xavier and has two remaining seasons of eligibility to make her mark on the conference in another uniform. During her time in Cincinnati, Mayo appeared in 51 games and made eight starts while averaging 8.4 points per game. She was named to the BIG EAST All-Freshman Team in her first collegiate season, and now aims to be a key contributor in Chicago.

“I’m truly excited to join DePaul and help get the program back to the NCAA Tournament,” Mayo said. “I chose DePaul because of its strong basketball program, supportive community and the opportunity to grow both academically and personally. I’m looking forward to continuing my basketball journey competing at the highest level while also pursuing my academic goals.”

Mayo’s sentiment about returning to the NCAA Tournament is echoed by the entire program, which aims to regain its status as a perennial postseason force. Following a string of 17-consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament from 2003-2019, DePaul has reached the Big Dance just once in the past six seasons. With Pizzotti now officially in charge with her own staff and recruits in place, it’s a new era for the Blue Demons.

Butler

2024-25 season: 16-18 (5-13 BIG EAST), WNIT Super 16

Now entering his fourth season at the helm, Butler head coach Austin Parkinson is guided by The Butler Way.

“We really try to embrace the values of The Butler Way — one of those is seeks … accountability for what we’re doing. And the kids have been here since, I think June. They worked their tails out. Now we’re just trying to figure out the pieces and what fits who your best player is. You know, that type of thing. That’s a learning process,” Parkinson told The IX Basketball.

During his time in Indianapolis, Parkinson has begun to turn around a program that notched just four wins across the entirety of the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. He nearly tripled that win total in his inaugural 2022-23 season (11-19), and the program’s winning percentage has inched up each year during his tenure. Last season the Bulldogs finished the season just shy of .500 (16-18) and made a postseason run to the WNIT’s Super 16.

Parkinson has learned some things during his tenure in the BIG EAST, including other programs’ styles of play and how to build rosters in his vision to compete against whatever is thrown his team’s way.

“You gotta have versatility, like the athleticism piece — you’re playing like Seton Hall and St John’s, and they can really get after you, but then you go play Creighton and Villanova, that’s a motion [offense]. So your strategic process and your roster have to have some flexibility, night in and night out,” Parkinson said.

To bolster his roster, Parkinson brought in two transfers from Power 4 schools — 5’9 sophomore guard McKenna Johnson (Minnesota/Big Ten) and 6’4 forward Mallory Miller (Arizona State/Big 12). Johnson, a No. 60 ranked recruit in the 2024 ESPN top 100 rankings, is a tough, three-level scorer who averaged 6.4 minutes, 2.9 points and 1.5 rebounds as a freshman in the Twin Cities.

Miller redshirted due to injury last season and is poised to return to on-court action. She is a versatile big with a high basketball IQ who should make an immediate impact for the Bulldogs. She felt drawn to Butler and Coach Parkinson, who recruited her as a senior out of South Dakota.

“Coach P had recruited me [out of high school]. And I just think like, even then, when they talked to me, they were just so intentional with how they spoke to me, and they kept it real, which I can really appreciate, especially after being in college for a while now, you can understand, like, it’s a business, and I just think he kept it so real with me, and it was just authentic,” Miller told The IX Basketball. “And that’s something that’s easy to buy into when you know that you’re getting.”

Parkinson hopes to achieve his first winning season as head coach of Butler. With new recruits in place and growing confidence, the Bulldogs are poised to resume their slow but sure ascent in the BIG EAST.

Providence

2024-25 season: 13-19 (6-12 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament first round

The Friars bid farewell to a whopping 10 seniors and graduates this offseason, many of whom were veterans whom preceded the Erin Batth era at Providence. Batth, now entering her third season as head coach, got to work on the recruitment trail and in the transfer portal, building a roster that fits her vision for the program.

A post in her playing days, Batth prioritized bringing in a talented big who could replace the lost production left by Olivia Olsen, last season’s second-leading scorer (11.1 ppg) and rebounder (8.3 rpg).

“Getting a post player out of the portal is hard. You got to be able to pay some money — let’s be real, right? So getting Teneisia Brown is huge … She has definitely checked the box with the rebounding, being able to play inside out, continue to run, you know, and be in transition. So that’s huge,” Batth told reporters about her incoming big.

Brown is a 6’2 transfer from Fairleigh Dickinson who averaged 15.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.1 steals per game. A two-time All-NEC First-Team selection (2024, 2025) and 2025 NEC Defensive Player of the Year, she guided FDU to its first NCAA Tournament appearance last season (2024-25). She’s a bucket-getter with postseason experience, and is the prospective centerpiece of the new-look Friars this year.

The Friars also added significant depth in the post, welcoming 6’5 Louisville transfer Eseosa Imafidon and 6’4 redshirt freshman Sami Mancini. The backcourt is anchored by Orlagh Gormley, a sophomore guard who didn’t get a chance to play much last season due to injury, but is expected to be a key contributor. Coach Batth also highlighted graduate guard Sabou Gueye, a Florida A&M transfer who she describes as quick and “one of the biggest guards [she’s] ever coached.”

Clearly, adding length and depth was a priority for the Friars this offseason, and Coach Batth and her staff did that successfully.

“We are not the underdog. I am not saying that anymore,” Batth said on media day. “I don’t want to hear it. Because when you start saying those things, you start being okay with you know, ‘Oh, we almost did okay.’ … The reality is that I’m trying to get my women to believe so it’s going to be, ‘We are not the underdog anymore.’ We are expecting to win every game, and that’s it.”

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Xavier

2024-25 season: 7-24 (1-17 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinal

Last Spring, the Xavier women’s basketball team won their second-ever BIG EAST Tournament game, and first in ten years (since 2015). It felt like a monkey-off-the-back moment for the program, which hopes to reverse its fortunes in conference play.

Since joining the BIG EAST in 2013-14, the Musketeers have never ended the regular season higher than the No. 7 seed (twice). Xavier has been the No. 10 seed four times, the No. 11 seed three times, the No. 9
seed twice and the No. 8 seed once. It’s been a tough transition to the BIG EAST for a program that won six conference tournament titles during its Atlantic 10 tenure (1996-2013).

Prior to the 2023-24 season, head coach Billi Chambers — a proven winner at Iona — inherited a program that’s spent a decade dwelling in the conference’s basement. Chambers is a builder, though, and is methodically building a foundation upon which to execute her vision for the Musketeers. Last season she coached guard Meri Kanerva to conference Freshman of the Year honors, and Xavier improved to .412 field-goal percentage defense, good for fourth in the conference. The Musketeers also ranked third in the BIG EAST and 106th in the NCAA in turnovers forced per game (20.1).

“We wanted to come in and be intentional about building a foundation that could continue to sustain and, you know, taking our time with it, not skipping steps, right? So, building a defensive culture, building a defensive mindset, and really now bringing in players that are going to help us score the basketball at a high clip,” Chambers told reporters.

“So we’re excited about what we’ve looked like early in the preseason, what we look like in our two scrimmages. [We] obviously have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks, but we want to be that pretty tough defensive team, and we want to get out and play at a faster pace, and I think these young women are leading the charge in that, and making sure that we’re getting up and down the court and going to be tough to compete against.”

One player fans should keep an eye on is junior transfer Mariyah Noel, who will play her first season at Xavier following two seasons in the SEC at Mississippi. She says she’s learned a lot from the elite competitiveness of the SEC, and it’s clear that Coach Chambers has brought her in not only to stimulate the offense, but also to act as a team leader.

“I had a good conversation with Coach Chambers [during recruitment],” Noel said. “We talked a lot about her goals and what she saw for the program, and I think they aligned with a lot of the things that I saw for myself. I know she also wanted me to come in and be a leader, and I think it was time for me to take on that, the responsibility of being a leader in a program, and I know I can do it.”

As ever, Chambers is focused on the process, and not taking any shortcuts to success. The Musketeers had just seven wins last season, and its players are not going to settle for that outcome again. Using last season as fuel, Xavier wants to show the conference they are a force to be reckoned with.

“[The team] sat and had a conversation about making sure that we double and put more wins on the board, and they’re excited about being incredibly competitive in the BIG EAST,” Chambers said. “So team goal is just to put more wins up.”