Women's Basketball Opens Season Monday at Missouri State - Southeast Missouri State University Athletics

Game 1

Southeast Missouri (0-0) at Missouri State (0-0)

Game Information
Date: November 2^nd, 2026
Time: 6:30 P.M.
Location: Springfield, Mo.
Venue: Great Southern Bank Arena
Series: MSU leads 15-2

Head Coaches
SEMO: Briley Palmer (97-83 Overall, 20-43 at SEMO; Second Season)
MSU: Beth Cunningham (92-44 overall; Fourth Season)

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The Southeast Missouri women's basketball team opens the 2026-27 season on the road at Missouri State at 6:30 p.m. at Great Southern Bank Arena.

Series History
The Redhawks and Bears have met 17 times, and Missouri State enters with a 15-2 lead in the series. The Bears have won the last six matchups and are 6-0 in Springfield. The first matchup was back in 1975 and the last time SEMO defeated MSU was in 2008.

Year Three
Head coach Briley Palmer is back for her third season leading the program. She has a 20-43 career record at SEMO and is coming off a season where the team went 14-18 and 8-12 in the OVC. Included in last season the Redhawks wrapped up the season on winning six of the last seven games.

The Only
Last season, SEMO entered the OVC tournament on a four-game winning streak to earn the eighth seed in the OVC tournament. The Redhawks defeated the No. 5 seed Little Rock 68-65 and carried the momentum against No. 4 Morehead State winning 60-55. The Redhawks were the first 8 seed to make the semifinals of the OVC tournament. The run ended against the No. 1 seed Western Illinois in a close 74-66 loss.

Picked Sixth
SEMO was picked sixth in the OVC preseason poll. Southern Indiana was picked first with 122 points and 13 first place votes. SIUE was slated 2^nd with 113 points and Western Illinois was picked third with 85. UT Martin (78) and Lindenwood (68) were fourth and fifth with SEMO getting 62 points. The poll wrapped up with Eastern Illinois in seventh (50), Morehead State in eighth (41) and Tennessee State in ninth (29).

The Squad
Lone Returner
Madison Ayers is the only returning player from the 2025-26 season. It is her fourth season being coached by coach Palmer and last season she played in 17 games, starting in nine and averaged 19.5 minutes per game. She averaged 4.4 points and one assist per game. She swiped 15 steals over the season. In her first start of the season against Lindenwood she scored a career high 16 points on 5-10 shooting and 2-5 from three-point range.

New Guards
The Redhawks brought in five transfers and two freshmen into the backcourt. Carrington Jones joined the team from Northwest Florida, Journee Harris was at Hill College, Jolie Bonderer stays in the Show Me state coming over from Central Missouri, Zoe Newland played at State Fair Community College and Karris Allen makes her third stop after playing last season at Southern Illinois.

The two freshmen include Hailey Buckman, a 6-foot guard from Rogersville, Missouri and Addi Owen who is a 5-foot-2 guard from St. Louis, Mo and Incarnate Word Academy.

New Forwards
The whole front court was revamped with five new forwards. The Transfer posts include Decarra Ward, a sophomore from Belmont University, Courtenay Lee, a senior from Georgia Southern and Yar Manyiel, a senior that played at LaSalle.

The two freshmen in the frontcourt include Faye Williams, the 6-foot-2 post played at Bartlett High School in Bartlett, Tennessee. She was a McDonalds All-American Nominee. Deborah Ayeni is a 6-foot-1 forward from Anoka, Minnesota.

Keep An Eye Out
Carrington Jones and Karris Allen were named to the OVC Preseason Watchlist. Jones is in her first season of Division I basketball after averaging 9.1 points on 51.7% shooting from the field at Northwest Florida. Allen is in her final season after averaging 4.1 points per game at Southern Illinois.

The Staff
The lone returning coach from the 2025-26 season is Jace Lance. Lance enters his second season at SEMO. Lexxus Graham is one of the new assistant coaches, and she joined the staff after one season at Western Kentucky University. Regina Garrett is the other new assistant. She was at South Carolina State University since 2023 and has seven years of Division I coaching experience.
De'Jovia Davis was also added onto the staff as Director of Basketball Operations. She comes from Old Dominion where she served in the same role for one season. Previous to ODU she was the DOBO at Kent State.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Karris Allen

Deborah Ayeni

Madison Ayers

Jolie Bonderer

Hailey Buckman

Journee Harris

Carrington Jones

Courtenay Lee

Yar Manyiel

Zoe Newland

Addi Owen

Faye Williams

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