KANSAS CITY, Mo. — College basketball season is less than a month away, and the MIAA kicked off its basketball media day in Kansas City, on Tuesday morning.

The 2023 MIAA basketball media day was the first chance to talk to the Missouri Southern women’s basketball team. The Lions are coming off a 29-7 record last year where they made a Sweet 16 appearance. Coming into this season, Southern has a mixture of some experienced girls and a bunch of newcomers.

Redshirt Junior Guard Kaitlin Hunnicutt said, “I know for the returners, we’ve been trying to do our best to make sure that all the new kids feel welcomed and feel like they’re in a safe space. Because if you feel like that, then that’s when you can bond and be able to have that chemistry on the floor.”

The Lions have seven returners and seven newcomers. So the goal for them this season is about all getting acclimated with each other and getting themselves ready for this season so they can go out and have the success just like they did last year.

Head Coach Ronnie Ressel voiced, “We have four JUCO kids, one D2 transfer and one D1 and we’re excited about them. The preseason has gone pretty well. Getting in shape. That’s been the biggest thing and understanding learning the different things as far as our offense and defense how we want to play and the big thing for me is defensively. We got to continue to get better and that’s where we’ve struggled a little bit early in our preseason on the defensive side. But you know, you got some kids that are working hard you’re getting into the gym they’re getting shots up. So that’s been a big plus for us the work ethics there. So I think we’ll continue to get better with each practice that we go through.”

Now the Lions will open its season on November 1st with an exhibition game by traveling up to Wichita State to take on the Shockers. But, their actual first game will be on November 10th in the MIAA/GAC Crossover in Emporia, Kansas.