ST. LOUIS – Missouri State women’s basketball forwards Jade Masogayo (So., Fort Worth, Texas) and Kennedy Taylor (Jr., Shawnee Mission, Kan.) have been named to the Preseason All-Missouri Valley Conference second team, the league announced today (Oct. 24).
This year’s annual survey of the league’s coaches, sports information directors and media selected five first-team and second-team members, with Northern Iowa’s Grace Boffeli named the Preseason Player of the Year.
Last year, Masogayo became the seventh Lady Bear in program history to earn MVC Freshman of the Year and the first Lady Bear to win the award since 2010. She was also named to the MVC All-Freshman Team after averaging 8.0 points and 5.4 rebounds per game while shooting .526 from the field in her freshman campaign. Her 44 blocked shots a year ago rank eighth in program history for a single season.
Taylor was named to the All-MVC Third Team and the MVC All-Newcomer Team following a breakout season in which she averaged 12.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game in her first season at Missouri State. Against Valley opponents last season, she was just shy of averaging a double-double with 13.0 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. She led the Lady Bears with 11 double-doubles and 14 double-figure rebounding games in 2022-23, and ranked 13th nationally and first in the MVC in offensive rebounds per game (4.0).
As a team, Missouri State was picked to finish fifth in the league this season with 382 points. This marks the ninth consecutive season the Lady Bears have been voted to finish in the top half of the league standings.
UNI was selected as the preseason favorite with 33 first-place votes (517 points), followed by Drake with 12 first-place votes (482 points), Illinois State with two first-place votes (433 points) and Belmont with one first-place vote (401 points). Missouri State slots in ahead of UIC, Murray State, Southern Illinois, Indiana State, Valparaiso, Evansville and Bradley to round out the rest of the poll.
Head coach Beth Cunningham enters her second season at the helm of the Lady Bear program after becoming just the second head coach in program history to record at least 20 wins in her first season. Missouri State went 20-12 overall and tied for fourth place in the MVC with a 14-6 conference record to secure a sixth-straight 20-win season and its eighth consecutive postseason appearance with a WNIT bid a season ago.
MSU returns six players from last year’s squad while welcoming in eight newcomers, a group that consists of three transfers and five freshman. The 2023-24 freshman class is Missouri State’s largest since the 2018-19 season.
The Lady Bears will host an exhibition on Wed., Nov. 1 against Missouri Western at Great Southern Bank Arena beginning at 6:30 p.m., before kicking off the 2023-24 regular season at Little Rock on Mon., Nov. 6.
