DURANT, Okla. – Coming off a run to the conference tournament finals and outplaying its preseason prediction by five spots, Southeastern women's basketball will enter the 2025-26 season picked to finish fourth in the Great American Conference Preseason Poll released on Wednesday.
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The Savage Storm secured 79 points in the preseason poll which is voted on by the league's head coaches, finishing three points ahead of Oklahoma Baptist in fifth.
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Harding and Southern Nazarene were co-favorites atop the poll with 11 points each, though the Bisons collected five first place votes to the four for the Crimson Storm.
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Southwestern Oklahoma State was third in the poll with 106 points and the final three first-place nods.
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East Central rounded out the top six, followed by the trio of Northwestern Oklahoma State, Arkansas Tech, and Henderson State who were separated by eight points total.
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Southern Arkansas was next in line in 10
th, with Ouachita Baptist and Arkansas-Monticello completing the poll.
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Southeastern returns second team All-GAC selection
Kenzli Warden who was second on the team in scoring a season ago with 14.2 ppg, including a conference tournament blowup that saw her score 63 points over three games.
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The Storm return two other starters in
Abbie Barr who averaged 6.5 ppg and 2.4 assists, as well as
Stevie Stinchcomb who dished out 2.7 assists per game and pulled down 4.5 rebounds per outing.
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In all, SE returns six of the 10 players who saw action in more than 20 games.
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Southeastern will also add eight newcomers to the mix as the program signed eight new freshmen in the offseason, spread evenly across the front and back court.
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The Storm open the 2025-26 season at the Central Region Challenge in Winona, Minn., first squaring off with Winona State at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 before facing Minnesota-Duluth on Nov. 15 at 4:00 p.m.
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The Storm will open its home schedule the following week on Nov. 20 when it hosts Cameron at 5:30 p.m. at Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
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