SMU vs Alabama State
Moody Coliseum – Dallas, Texas
Nov. 7, 2022 – 4 p.m. CT

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DALLAS (SMU) – A year ago, SMU women's basketball was selected to finish near the bottom of the American Athletic Conference standings.

Then first-year coach Toyelle Wilson was in the midst of a rebuilding project outsiders expected would take some time to turn around.

A year later, the Mustangs are in a very different place.

Going into the 2022-23 campaign, SMU finds itself predicted to finish third in the AAC standings, just behind league frontrunners South Florida and Houston. The team has a unanimous preseason all-conference first-team selection in Savannah Wilkinson and a lot of momentum to build on after finishing fifth in the league last year and making the WNIT for the first time since 2017.

"Our expectations are much higher and I think it's a testament to our program and the kids that we have here," Wilson said. "Being picked so high, that was our expectation regardless of what was the selection – we don't pay attention to those because it's really about other people's opinion."

It's easy to understand why outsiders would have higher opinions coming into this season. SMU returns eight players who saw significant playing time, including regular starters Wilkinson, Jasmine Smith and Reagan Bradley. Additionally, the team gets reinforcements from transfers like Chantae Embry (Texas Tech) and Jessica Peterson (Fresno State) and a strong four-player freshman class. Not only was SMU picked to finish near the top of the AAC, but the Mustangs received a vote in the preseason USA Today/Coaches Top 25 poll.

After finished 14-15 overall last year and 7-7 in the AAC, Wilson is ready to see how competitive her squad can be. The season opens on Tuesday at home with Division II Texas A&M International at 7 p.m. Shortly after that, the nonconference slate amps up quickly with dates against preseason ranked foes in No. 15 Oklahoma (November 11) and No. 18 Baylor (November 15) in back-to-back games, along with California (December 4) and Texas A&M (December 18) down the road.

Those outings will provide bigger tests but will also be opportunities for the Mustangs to prove that the preseason praise was well-deserved.

"I will say that it's nice to see that people respect our game now. They see what we were able to do in the future now, but that's kind of where it stops for us," Smith said. "We really focus on what we can control. We don't really focus on external opinions, just making sure that we can focus on what we need to do, focus on our culture, focus on what we're responsible for and making sure we can execute that every single day."

No matter how the nonconference portion plays out, Wilson's plan with a tough early schedule was about preparing her team for the rigors of AAC play. South Florida and Central Florida both received votes in the preseason AP poll, with Houston joining them in receiving votes in the USA Today/Coaches Poll.
To meet the expectations of outsiders, the Mustangs will have to stay healthy and play well. But this program has a focus on much bigger goals.

"We came here to win championships. Every kid that came here to this program came here to win a championship, and that's our expectation, that's our standard," Wilson said. "We have a great conference here and we just want our girls to be ready. That's why we scheduled the way we did out of conference because we wanted to get some competition to be challenged early in November so we're ready for conference starting at the end of December."