Oct. 23—MITCHELL — A strong foundation for Dakota Wesleyan University women's basketball has made competing at the national level an annual expectation for the Tigers.
The upcoming 2026-27 season should be no exception to that for DWU. The Tigers are ranked No. 2 nationally, tied for the highest preseason ranking in team history with the 2003-04 Tigers and the 2018-19 team. DWU is also the Great Plains Athletic Conference co-favorite alongside perennial power Dordt University.
Even with that being the case, 17th-year head coach Jason Christensen said the preseason preparation has followed a similar theme to past seasons: getting ready for a long campaign of tough opponents and hard-nosed basketball.
"We're ready to play someone else," Christensen said. "We play 11 kids when we scrimmage right now, just because we don't know who is going to fill in those spots yet. We've got kids that are pretty good defensively, pretty good offensively, taking care of the ball. So we're figuring out where we're at and those scrimmages are tough because everyone knows everyone else's tendencies."
Christensen said he knows there will be high preseason expectations based on the number of returning veteran players. But he expects the GPAC to have five or six national qualifiers again and a long list of competitive teams.
"We have a lot of veterans back, so I get it. We're probably going to be favored in a lot of these sorts of things, but we've still got to go out there and play the game," he said. "We're going to work hard to keep things in perspective and do what we need to do to be successful."
Here's what to know ahead of the upcoming season:
Record (2025-26): 29-7, 18-4 GPAC
Postseason: The Tigers won the GPAC tournament with an 84-76 win over No. 1-ranked Dordt on March 3, which was DWU's second league tournament title in five years. In the NAIA bracket, DWU defeated St. Francis (Ind.) and College of the Ozarks on the first weekend at the Corn Palace and then topped Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) and Bethel (Tenn.) to reach the national semifinals. The Tigers' run ended there, falling 62-54 to eventual national champion Marian (Ind.) on March 23.
Key returners: The Tigers bring back four key seniors, all of whom have extensive starting experience. All-Americans Avery Broughton and Emma Yost both return, with Broughton averaging 14.6 ppg last season and winning GPAC defensive player of the year. Yost led the team in scoring with 15.1 ppg. Shalayne Nagel (8.4 ppg) and Jaida Young (5.4 ppg and 4.1 assists per game) both started all 36 games last season and return for another DWU season.
Christensen on his team's experience: "It's great. I don't know how to explain it but it's been very fun. I don't have any drama. I don't have anything with this group. You can tell that these older kids have done a really good job mentoring our young players, and that's a tribute to the previous seniors too and how they influenced our current team. It makes my job easy."
Key departures: The Tigers graduated three key contributors from last season's team in Rylee Rosenquist, Taliyah Hayes and Maleighya Estes. Christensen said there's no question the team is missing Rosenquist early in the season, as the second-team all-GPAC selection from 2026 started in 89 games over four seasons and had a knack for doing everything for DWU from her guard spot.
Key newcomers: DWU added Lyman High School product and University of North Dakota transfer Skyler Volmer to the roster in the offseason. Volmer played 51 games for UND over the last two seasons and Christensen said he expects the junior to be a contributor from the start of the season. The coach said sophomore Sloane Keszler and junior Isabelle Ellwein will take on bigger guard roles, and junior forwards Avery Orth and Lizzie Pavlis have extensive playing experience but have improved a lot over the offseason.
Notes: DWU had three wins over top-five ranked teams in 2025-26 and five against teams in the top-10. ... DWU has won 38 of 44 home games over the last three seasons. The Tigers are also 27-9 in non-conference games in that span. ... The Tigers have posted five consecutive 20-win seasons, and excluding the shortened COVID-19 campaign of 2020-21, DWU has 10 consecutive 20-win seasons, winning 73% of its games in that span.
Christensen on the benefits of the national tournament run last season: "I think it was huge, because they got to experience that. ... I've always been a firm believer that the more you play, the better you get. A lot of teams are done at the end of February. We got to go until mid-March, and that's huge. We got a whole month extra of basketball, which I think that helped them just experience-wise. They've made that jump already."
How it starts: DWU starts the season at 4 p.m. Sunday with a home exhibition game against Northern State at the Corn Palace. It is DWU's first time playing the Wolves since Nov. 15, 2006, when NSU won 66-44 at the Palace. ... The regular season will begin on Oct. 30 with the CorTrust Classic at the Corn Palace against William Penn (Iowa) and on Oct. 31 against Valley City State (N.D.). ... DWU will play a pair of ranked non-conference foes on Nov. 6-7 in the Cattle Classic in Seward, Nebraska. On Nov. 6, they will take on No. 3-ranked Dakota State and will play No. 16 Montana Tech on Nov. 7. ... The GPAC opener will be Saturday, Nov. 14 against No. 18 Hastings in Mitchell.