Reigning SCAC Gold Division regular-season champion Colorado College has been selected as the preseason favorite to win the 2026 SCAC women's basketball title in voting conducted exclusively by the league's head coaches.
Colorado College (20-6 overall; 15-1 SCAC), coming off its third consecutive 20-win season, garnered six first-place votes to top the coaches' poll with 76 points. The CC Tigers, last season's SCAC Gold Division Champions, return SCAC First-Year Player-of-the-Year and Second Team All-SCAC performer,
Rayna Welsch. Last season, Welsch averaged 12.5 points behind an impressive 52.9 percent shooting, the second highest shooting percentage in the SCAC for any player who averaged 10 or points a contest last year. She started in 23 of the 25 contests she played in and averaged 6.5 rebounds per game.
Katherine Auguste returns for her 11th season as the head coach of the Tigers. Auguste, who leads the reigning SCAC Coaching Staff-of-the-Year, is the program's all-time winningest coach and enters the 2026-27 campaign with 140 career victories, four wins shy of entering the top-10 for all-time wins in league history. She is sixth all-time in SCAC history with 98 career league wins, two wins shy of becoming just the sixth coach in conference history to win 100 SCAC contests.
The Tigers will begin their season at home on Friday, November 13
th when they face Willamette. Tip-off is set for 1 pm at Reid Arena.
2026-27 SCAC Women's Basketball Preseason Coaches' Poll
(first-place votes in parentheses, followed by total points) |
| 1. |
Colorado College (6) |
76 |
| 2. |
Hendrix College (3) |
70 |
| 3. |
Texas Lutheran University (1) |
64 |
| 4. |
Austin College |
63 |
| 5. |
University of St. Thomas (Tex.) |
48 |
| 6. |
University of the Ozarks |
44 |
| 7. |
Concordia University (Tex.) |
33 |
| 8. |
LeTourneau University |
22 |
| 9. |
University of Dallas |
20 |
| 10. |
Centenary College |
10 |
