It’s time for another episode of the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast. In the latest episode, host and The Next’s Atlantic 10 beat writer Natalie Heavren is joined by Missy Heidrick to discuss the biggest mid-major games to watch this season now that conferences have released their schedules. Natalie and Missy cover the most exciting A-10, Big East, Conference USA and West Coast Conference games, as well as the transfers that will affect those matchups.
Missy on why you should keep an eye on Creighton:
They were in the Elite 8 in 2022, they ended No. 23 in the final national polls. Jim Flannery is doing a great job there of getting talent from the midwest into his program in Omaha where they can run a system. They play hard, they’re gonna defend, they’ll get up and down if they have to. But I really like what they’re doing. They’ve got their leading scorer back.
They open [Big East play] Nov. 25 … at Xavier. So you’ve got to keep an eye on how this Creighton team kind of makes the transition from being in the national spotlight last year to this year. I tihnk that’s incredibly important.
Missy on the outlook for the A-10 this season:
I think this is an incredibly competitive conference, and it really has been year in and year out. You look at what was a battle last season between Dayton and Rhode Island at the top of the league. Dayton [won] the regular-season championship last year, Rhode Island finished second. But it’s a Dayton Flyers squad that’s going to look incredibly different than they did a year ago when they made that run in the NCAA Tournament and turned some heads. They lost a ton and they’re going to have to retool themselves, reinvent themselves a little bit.
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For more mid-major NCAA coverage from our team, click here. Natalie also recently covered the five biggest A-10 games to mark on your calendars, which you can find here.