Coming off of the program’s best season in over a decade and one of the nation’s top turnarounds, the Valpo women’s basketball team has been picked to finish in seventh place in the Missouri Valley Conference for the 2020-21 season, according to preseason polling of the conference’s head coaches, sports information directors and media members.
Last season saw Valpo enjoy a remarkable season, as the team finished the campaign with a 17-12 overall record and a 9-9 mark in MVC play to finish in sixth place in the conference standings. The team jumped 172 spots in the RPI from the previous season, the largest leap for any D-I team in the nation, and improved by 10.5 games over the prior year, sixth-best nationally.
Last year’s 17 wins marked the most by a Valpo team since 2006-07, while the .500 record in conference play was the program’s first since 2008-09. Three starters and nine letterwinners in all are set to return from a squad that closed out last season strong, winning six of its final nine MVC games.
Valpo tallied 176 points in the polling to finish in seventh position. Last year’s regular-season champions, Missouri State, claimed 33 of the 40 first-place votes and topped the poll, while Bradley received the other seven first-place nods and is projected second.
Valpo’s MVC schedule is set to kick off as the calendar flips to 2021 when it hosts Loyola. The non-conference schedule will be released at a later date.
