Women’s basketball picked to finish fifth in the MVC Pre-season Poll

The Indiana State University women's basketball team were selected to finish fifth in the upcoming 2011-12 Missouri Valley Conference season.  

Conference head coaches, sports information and media representatives vote the annual preseason poll on.

Last season the Sycamores were picked to finish eighth in the conference in the preseason poll.  The team finsished seventh upsetting number two Illinois State University in the quarter finals of the 2011 State Farm MVC Tournanment winning 80-51.  Unfortunately ISU were defeated by the Missouri State Bears (79-84) despite strong combeback efforts.

Missouri State University was selected to win the conference title earning 36 of 40 first-place votes and amassing a score of 396 points.

The Sycamores finished last season 16-16 under then rookie head coach Teri Moren.  The accomplishment set an ISU record for the number of wins under a rookie head coach.

Senior center Shannon Thomas was selected to the five-member pre-season all-conference team.  Thomas was a second team all-MVC sekection when she led the conference with an average of 8.6 rebounds per game and finished eigth in scoring averaging 13.1 points per contest.  

The Sycamores will be in action November 4th as the team hosts Bellarmine in an exhibition game.  The team will open their regular season against Detroit November 11th.