NEW ORLEANS – The 2026-27 women’s basketball season tips off on Monday, Nov. 2, with 13 of 14 Sun Belt Conference teams taking the floor with 12 members of the conference hitting the road for the MAC-SBC Challenge. All games will be streamed on ESPN+.
 
PRESEASON HONORS
Arkansas State’s Crislyn Rose was voted Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year, headlining the 2026-27 Preseason All-Sun Belt Teams. Rose is the first Arkansas State player to earn Preseason Player of the Year honors since Aundrea Gamble did so in back-to-back seasons in 2014-15 and 2015-16.
 
Rose was one of five student-athletes to earn First-Team All-Sun Belt honors alongside Coastal Carolina’s Tessa Grady, Louisiana Tech’s Jordan Marshall, App State’s Daisia Mitchell and James Madison’s Bree Robinson.
 
DEFENDING CHAMPS & FAVORITES TO REPEAT
James Madison took the top spot in the 2026-27 Preseason Coaches Poll with 189 total votes and 11 first-place nods. The Dukes finished fourth in the regular season last year with a 14-4 Sun Belt Conference recorded before heading to Pensacola.
 
In the Sun Belt Championship, the Dukes rode Sun Belt Player of the Year Peyton McDaniel’s three-straight 20-point outings to their second conference tournament title in the last four years. JMU’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament saw them earn the No. 12 seed in the Fort Worth #3 Regional before falling to No. 5 Kentucky, 71-56.
 
In four full seasons in the Sun Belt, the Dukes have hoisted four total trophies – 2023 and 2026 tournament titles and 2022-23 and 2024-25 regular season titles – and played for the title game in all four seasons. James Madison are the league’s preseason favorites again, marking the fourth consecutive season with the Dukes atop the Preseason Coaches Poll.
 
JMU also led its peers with three Preseason All-Sun Belt selections with Bree Robinson (first), Zakiya Stephenson (second) and Grace McDonough (third) anchoring the returning production for the Dukes.
 
MAC-SBC CHALLENGE
The MAC-SBC Challenge is back for its fourth season and sees the Sun Belt women’s basketball teams traveling to their MAC counterparts to open the 2026-27 regular season. All 12 of the MAC’s teams will host 12 of the Sun Belt’s 14 programs on Monday with Southern Miss and Louisiana sitting out this year’s challenge.
 
On the women’s basketball front, the Mid-American Conference holds a 38-36 overall advantage through three seasons of the challenge. The Sun Belt took the 2023-24 edition with a 14-10 overall record with the MAC winning 2024-25 15-9. The two leagues split the 2025-26 challenge 13-13, giving the MAC 38 wins and the Sun Belt 36.
 
The Sun Belt is 22-15 with homecourt advantage while the MAC is 23-14. Pairings for the second round of matchups will be announced in January with the Sun Belt schools hosting the MAC. See below for a breakdown of the Sun Belt’s record in the challenge:
 

Season	First Round	Second Round	Season Record	Overall Record
2023-24	9-3 (.750)	5-7 (.417)	14-10 (.583)	14-10 (.583)
2024-25	4-8 (.333)	5-7 (.417)	9-15 (.375)	23-25 (.479)
2025-26	8-5 (.615)	5-8 (.385)	13-13 (.500)	36-38 (.486)

 
 
TWO MORE TANGOS
Southern Miss and Louisiana also open their respective seasons this week with the Lady Eagles hosting Division II Mississippi Christian on Monday at 11 a.m. CT and the Ragin’ Cajuns playing a standalone game on Tuesday against NAIA Xavier (La.) at 6 p.m. CT.
 
SBC DEBUTS
Three Sun Belt teams will take the floor under new leadership this season as three first-year head coaches make their Sun Belt debuts. However, three first-year Sun Belt coaches look a bit different from one another.
 
Georgia Southern’s Heather Macy rejoins the Division I coaching ranks after nine years and brings with her a 362-204 overall record in 21 seasons in the NCAA. Macy arrives in Statesboro from Nova Southeastern and has previous stops at Barry (Fla.), Greensboro, Spartanburg Methodist, East Carolina, Francis Marion and Pfeiffer. Macy is the all-time wins leader at East Carolina where she led the Pirates from 2010-18.
 
On the other side of the Peach State, Georgia State’s Marcilina Grayer will be coaching her first season in Division I after a successful run at Salt Lake Community College in Utah. In seven seasons at SLCC, Grayer posted a 146-57 overall record that included five 20-win campaigns and two NJCAA Tournament berths.
 
Louisiana Tech’s Brooke Stoehr is the third “new” head coach to the Sun Belt but is in her 11th season leading her alma mater. The 2002 graduate of Louisiana Tech holds a 173-134 overall record in Ruston and is 249-192 in 14 overall Division I seasons. She captured the Conference USA regular season title last season and posted a 26-7 overall ledger that marked the most wins in a season since 2003-04. Notably, Stoehr, then playing as Brooke Lassiter, never lost a Sun Belt game as a player from 1998-01.
 
LEARN YOU SOMETHING
Sun Belt Conference programs are once again hosting Education Day games to promote the sport of basketball to local elementary and middle schools. Opening week of the 2026-27 season sees three Sun Belt programs host their Education Day games with Southern Miss opening the season with theirs and Louisiana Tech and Coastal Carolina playing theirs on Thursday.
 
PENSACOLA PARTY
The 2027 Visit Pensacola Sun Belt Basketball Championships presented by Air Force Reserve will be held March 2-8, 2027, at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Florida. The championship game will be televised nationally on ESPNU on Monday, March 8. The 2027 tournament will mark the seventh consecutive season the Sun Belt hosts the event in Pensacola, which will remain at the venue through the 2029-30 campaign.
 
2026-27 Sun Belt Season-Openers

Date	Time (CT)	Matchup	Coverage	Notes
Monday, Nov. 2	10 a.m.	Coastal Carolina at Western Michigan	Stats | ESPN+	CCU WMU
Monday, Nov. 2	10 a.m.	Old Dominion at Central Michigan	Stats | ESPN+	ODU (n/a) CMU
Monday, Nov. 2	11 a.m.	Mississippi Christian at Southern Miss	Stats | ESPN+	MC (n/a) USM
Monday, Nov. 2	5 p.m.	South Alabama at Akron	Stats | ESPN+	USA AKR
Monday, Nov. 2	5 p.m.	Georgia State at Buffalo	Stats | ESPN+	GSU UB
Monday, Nov. 2	5 p.m.	Marshall at Massachusetts	Stats | ESPN+	MU (n/a) UMass
Monday, Nov. 2	5:30 p.m.	Arkansas State at Ball State	Stats | ESPN+	ASU BSU
Monday, Nov. 2	5:30 p.m.	App State at Eastern Michigan	Stats | ESPN+	APP EMU
Monday, Nov. 2	6 p.m.	ULM at Ohio	Stats | ESPN+	ULM OU
Monday, Nov. 2	6 p.m.	Georgia Southern at Bowling Green	Stats | ESPN+	GS BGSU
Monday, Nov. 2	6 p.m.	Louisiana Tech at Toledo	Stats | ESPN+	LTU UT (n/a)
Monday, Nov. 2	6 p.m.	James Madison at Miami (Ohio)	Stats | ESPN+	JMU MOH
Monday, Nov. 2	6 p.m.	Troy at Kent State	Stats | ESPN+	TU KS (n/a)
Tuesday, Nov. 3	6 p.m.	Xavier (La.) at Louisiana	Stats | ESPN+	XULA (n/a) UL (n/a)