Southern Illinois begins the basketball season looking up at several of its Illinois rivals in the Missouri Valley Conference’s preseason forecasts. The Saluki women were picked eighth and the men ninth in polls released October 13. Illinois State was selected second in both competitions, while UIC landed third on the men’s side and sixth on the women’s side.
Those positions create an early outline of the conference’s Illinois storylines. The Redbirds enter with substantial expectations across both programs. The Flames have a particularly strong forecast for their men. SIU must establish a different assessment through the games ahead, beginning with a women’s exhibition against Kentucky Wesleyan on October 22 and a November 3 regular-season opener against Illinois Springfield.
Neither poll changes the starting record. It does show how the Salukis are viewed before their first regular-season results arrive. For a women’s program coming off a 10–20 season, that outside assessment carries a clear competitive challenge: turn improvement into something the rest of the conference has to account for.
Nelson puts the response on the court
Senior guard Tkiyah Nelson addressed the eighth-place selection in SIU’s announcement, saying that “we're not letting a preseason ranking define us.” The Salukis received 166 points and no first-place votes in the women’s poll.
The useful distinction in Nelson’s response is between accepting the vote as information and accepting it as an outcome. SIU knows where voters placed it. Its players still have a full season in which to establish a different position through results. The poll supplies an expectation; it does not award wins to the teams ranked above them.
Coach Kelly Bond-White made the standard more concrete in the same school release: “Respect in this league is earned through consistency, toughness, and execution.” Those qualities will have to produce repeatable performances across the schedule. One competitive opening night would be useful. Maintaining that level through the conference season would be more consequential.
Murray State leads the women’s field
Murray State finished first in the women’s voting with 477 points and 41 first-place votes. The Racers were the reigning regular-season and conference-tournament champions, giving their preseason position a recent competitive foundation.
Illinois State followed with 396 points. Belmont had 375 and two first-place votes, while Northern Iowa received 343 points and the remaining first-place vote. Drake was fifth with 317, and UIC’s 267 points placed the Flames sixth.
SIU’s 166 points put it below that group of preseason contenders. That is a meaningful description of the vote, but it leaves the Salukis with more than one route to changing the season’s conversation. They do not need to win a debate about the poll. They need enough completed performances to make their actual conference position more useful than their projected one.
Illinois State’s second-place forecast gives the in-state comparison particular weight. The Redbirds are being treated as a contender before play begins. UIC is placed in the upper half of the women’s order. SIU starts from a lower assessment, with the opportunity to test those differences when the conference schedule puts the programs together.
The men face a similar Illinois comparison
Murray State also topped the men’s poll, collecting 517 points and 32 first-place votes. Illinois State was second with 471 points and seven first-place votes. UIC followed just five points behind the Redbirds, receiving 466 points and six first-place votes.
That narrow separation gives Illinois State and UIC a different preseason problem from SIU’s: sustaining the level voters expect. The Salukis, selected ninth, have to build a case from a less favorable starting assessment. Both tasks require results, but the expectations surrounding those results are different.
Belmont received 353 points, Valparaiso 343 and Bradley 313. Each received one first-place vote. The voting therefore contains confidence in more than the top three teams, even though Murray State received the largest share of first-place selections.
For Illinois basketball followers, the poll gives several programs a place in the same conference conversation. Illinois State and UIC occupy the leading group. Bradley sits sixth. SIU begins ninth. Those positions offer a starting comparison without reducing the season to a prediction that can no longer change.
The first tests are already on the calendar
SIU’s women will host Kentucky Wesleyan at Banterra Center in an October 22 exhibition. Illinois Springfield visits for the regular-season opener on November 3. Both are listed for 6 p.m. The exhibition offers an early competitive test; the opener begins the official record.
The immediate task is to turn the preseason response into work that can be observed: a functioning rotation, possessions finished with purpose and an ability to sustain useful stretches across a game. Those are questions the opening dates can begin to answer. The conference polls cannot answer them in advance.
SIU enters with lower forecasts than several nearby rivals. What remains open is how long those forecasts will continue to describe the Salukis once the season provides actual evidence.
College / Basketball / STORY
UIC Women Open With Road Tests—and a Chicago Matchup Worth Following
UIC Flames
UIC’s women’s basketball season will begin with a demanding road assignment and move quickly into games Chicago fans can follow across the city. The Flames open at Ohio State on November 2, visit Robert Morris on November 5 and return to Credit Union 1 Arena to face Northwestern on November 8. The home opener gives Ashleen Bracey’s team an immediate local matchup after two away games.
