CORALVILLE, Iowa — The first day of the 2026 Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament at XTream Arena saw a couple of upsets as two of the three games were won by lower seeds.
No. 9 Indiana State defeated No. 8 Southern Illinois, 81-69, in the first game and then No. 10 Evansville followed suit by defeating No. 7 UIC, 76-71. Drake capped off the night by defeating Valparaiso, 81-55.
Here are a few storylines from the day:
Upset wins mark milestones
In his second season, Marc Mitchell won his first post-season game as Indiana State head coach. That’s a feat that looked like a longshot last spring when he lost his entire roster to graduation and the transfer portal and had to start from scratch.
“It’s been a work in progress since June 9,” he told reporters at a press conference after the game. “We all got together for the first time June 9, and it’s been a roller coaster ride with these cast of characters that I have on this roster this year. I mean, Clemisha Prackett and Da’Naria Washington and Kennedy Claybrooks, they drive me nuts, but I love them.
Sophomore guard Tierney Kelsey, a transfer from Jackson State, led the team in scoring with 24 points. She was glad to get the win.
“Just knowing how important this is for all of us, just being on the same page and getting it done,” she told reporters. “At the end of the day, we knew what it was, we got a chip on our shoulder, so we just had to play hard and come out strong, and we pulled it through.”
Sophomore forward Amerie Flowers, who pulled down 14 rebounds and scored 14 points, was proud of the way the team jelled.
“Like coach said, it’s been a roller coaster all season long, so just the biggest thing for us today was playing together,” she said. “I believe that we were all efficient. We played great defense towards the end. I think we played together. I think that was it. We just had to learn how to play together, and that’s what we did.”
Evansville won their first MVC Tournament game since 2017, when they defeated Missouri State, 65-59, in the first round.
Thursday’s win didn’t come as a surprise to Evansville head coach Robyn Scherr.
“We talked a lot about coming out there and playing to win, not being afraid of the moment, really just going out and taking it. And I thought our team did just that,” she told reporters after the game. “It was a really balanced game for our team with balanced scoring. We just had a lot of really good moments from a lot of different players, and that’s what it takes to win at this time of the year. It’s the first time we’ve done this in a while. I’m just not surprised at all, because we’ve been playing some really good basketball, and I’m really proud of these guys for turning it into a win.”
After going 3-8 in the non-conference season, including falling to Iowa in a 119-43 drubbing, the Purple Aces began to turn it around.
“Our nonconference [schedule] didn’t go very well. We had some really tough losses, and they kept believing they trusted in their coaches, they trusted in our vision and what we believed they could be. And then finally, they started to believe it too. They started believing in themselves, and they saw in themselves what we’d seen all along, what we knew they could be,” Scherr added.
“Becoming Caitlin Clark” is out now!
Howard Megdal’s newest book is here! “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar” captures both the historic nature of Clark’s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.
Learning lessons and looking ahead
Southern Illinois head coach Kelly Bond-White was proud of her team’s resiliency and how they stayed together this season.
“I’m super proud,” she told reporters after the game. “I talked to my seniors, all three transfers, all having opportunities elsewhere, but choosing specifically to come back to the Missouri Valley, to come back to Southern Illinois and to stay in the region that they represent. That meant something. Recruits have taken notice of it.”
Graduate student Jeniah Thompson grew up in Carterville, Ill., just 15 minutes from the Southern Illinois campus. She finished her career with 14-point, 11-rebound double-double.
“I went to SIU coming out of high school my freshman year, and I left and I made my way back,” she told reporters. “It means a lot to wear the Saluki across my chest, to be able to represent where I’m from, and show other girls that are younger than me that they can do it too, just from the same small city a couple of miles over. I definitely don’t take it for granted.”
Sophomore guard Alayna Kraus, who transferred from Oral Roberts University, led the game with 25 points. She made an immediate impression with Southern Illinois this season, making the All-MVC Third Team and the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team.
She also grew up in southern Illinois, and was recruited by Bond-White while at Okawville (Ill.) High School before deciding on Oral Roberts. She is glad she chose to come back home.
“It has meant a lot for me. Honestly, I struggled a lot last year. I didn’t really get much of an opportunity,” Kraus told reporters. “So to be able to come back home and represent Southern Illinois and represent who I am, has really helped me.”
Headed into the MVC Tournament 0-31 in her first year as Valparaiso’s head coach Courtney Boyd believed they could get their first win over Drake in the first round.
“To be honest with you, we really thought tonight was the night, and it wasn’t because of the matchup. It wasn’t because of that we just saw them, we felt like we had a good scout. It had everything to do with us,” she told reporters after the game. “For a really long time, that’s what we were waiting for, is that everything that we prepped, everything that we felt good about, the way we moved the ball, made baskets, boxed out, stayed attention to detail, we felt really good about it. That’s one thing that I was excited about coming into this game, is I thought we turned a corner. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the free throw line very often, which is tough, but we did forget to rebound at times too, which put us in a tough spot.”
Despite the disappointing end to a tough season, Boyd had an offseason message in the locker room for her returning players.
“We’ve got habits to break. That’s what it comes down to. No matter how you put together a team every single year, no matter what you start with, what you bring in, what changes, different positions, whatever it is, you’ve got to figure out how to mesh. And when you figure that out, it’s because you can lean on the person next to you,” she said of how they move ahead.
“It all comes down to trust. The quicker we can trust each other, the quicker we can understand each other, the better off we’re going to be. And so whenever that day is – I haven’t got there in my brain yet – but I think that that at the end of the day is going to be the thing that’s going to carry us forward. And that’s going to be how quickly we can change going into season number two.”
Basketball runs in the Frese family
At 86, Donna Frese has been to her share of basketball games and has no signs of slowing down.
Thursday night Frese, who lives in Cedar Rapids — about 25 minutes north of Coralville — was with her family watching her granddaughter Sydney Huber, a freshman starting guard for Evansville.
Sydney is the daughter of Stacy Frese Huber, who was an All-American at Iowa State from 1996-2000 and drafted by one of the original eight WNBA teams, the Utah Starzz.
Two of Donna’s other six children, Brenda and Marsha, are Division I coaches — Brenda Frese the head coach of Maryland and Marsha Frese an assistant coach at Georgia Tech.
Donna loves to travel across the country to her daughters’ games. She went to the West Coast this year to watch Maryland’s games against UCLA and USC and went to Oregon and Washington last season.
While it is still up in the air whether Maryland will host the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Donna has her plane ticket ready just in case.
When she doesn’t travel to games, she watches them — all of them.
“I don’t miss a game because I have my TV. A lot of times my daughter comes over and we’ll have glasses of wine while we’re watching the game,” she told The IX Sports. “A lot of times there’s conflict, and that’s really difficult. Sydney gets top priority, she gets the big screen and we have our laptops to watch the other games while they’re going on. And if we don’t catch them that way, we catch the reruns of it.”
Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast and Women’s Sports Daily
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women’s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women’s sports news and analysis. Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to podcasts, and make sure to subscribe!
Wearing a blue Evansville sweatshirt while sitting at XTream Arena, Donna reflected on how many teams she has represented in her wardrobe.
“We were talking about that this afternoon, because I’ve probably been to thousands of games because my one daughter’s changed schools a few times. Of course, Brenda’s been in Maryland quite some time, but Marsha has moved to more schools,” she said. “Then, of course, the high school, I try to stay and go to those games too. But the one thing I am very thankful for, I’ve got wonderful kids, and usually they accompany me.”
Although she was nearly seven hours away from Evansville, Ind., Sydney Huber — who scored 11 points — felt the love from the Iowa crowd.
“My house is just about 30 minutes from here, so there were a lot of family and friends and stuff from high school,” Huber said after the game. “It was just great to be able to play in front of all of them. They don’t get to as many games as they would like. So this was just really special.”
