Racers ready for first preseason scrimmage
WBB: Murray State's only exhibition game will be November 3rd vs. Trevecca Nazarene
As we close in on the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season, we have reached the portion of the program where teams begin playing some combination of two exhibition games or secret scrimmages. This is the first year college teams have the option to play other Division I teams in public exhibition games, instead of just scrimmaging them behind closed doors. Some coaches like the scrimmage format because they can stop the action and teach at any point without being in the confines of a game.
Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner will have her team go through one exhibition and one secret scrimmage over the next couple of weeks. That scrimmage will actually happen today at <redacted> against <redacted>.
Is the secrecy silly? Yes.
Are those still, for whatever reason, the rules about the secret scrimmages? Also apparently yes.
Regardless of the who and the where, Turner is entering today’s scrimmage pretty pleased with where her team is 15 days ahead of the season opener at Southern Indiana.
“I’ve said from the beginning it’s going to be a work in progress, especially with our post players logging zero minutes in a Murray State uniform, but we’ve been happy with the progress,” Turner said. “They’re a team that works extremely hard daily, whether it’s individual workouts, extra shooting or when we go and practice. We feel like that the continued hard work is going to lead to positive things for us down the road. (We’re) excited about the scrimmage to play somebody else. We practice against our practice team, but after a while, you need to face another women’s team to kind of see where you are and what the things are that we need to work on. Defensively, I think we’re better, but we need to see that against another team. Offensively, in all of our scrimmages against the guys, we’ve scored the ball. We’ve kind of got to put both sides of it together to see where it goes, and what better way than playing another Division I opponent.”
The obvious measure of success in any game or scrimmage is the scoreboard, but Turner has other checkpoints she’ll be monitoring this afternoon to figure out if her team has accomplished what she wanted.
“Analytically, are we getting the number of shots we want,” Turner said. “Is the pace where we want it to be? Are we offensive rebounding — all the things that go into our formula for being successful. I think more than anything, we’ll probably, as a staff, watch the defensive side of the ball, because we’ve got to be better in that area. It doesn’t do us any good to score 90 if we give up 95. I think it’s important to us to see when the lights come on and it matters, and they’re actually keeping stats, who can step up and play and who can continue to make the shots they’ve been making in practice. I think we’ll know more about our depth after the scrimmage.”
After today, the Racers’ final preseason dress rehearsal will be Monday, November 3rd against Trevecca. Murray State will open the season Friday, November 7th on the road at Southern Indiana.