By Calvin Wetzel, Her Hoop Stats
 
The 2010s was a long decade for the Murray State Racers. After a conference regular season championship and a WNIT bid in the 2008-09 season, the program endured an 11-year stretch that included nine losing seasons and zero postseason appearances.
 
If the last two seasons are any indication, however, the 2020s are going to be an entirely different story. Following a 16-11 season in 2020-21 (the Racers’ best record since that 2008-09 season), head coach Rechelle Turner led her team to a 22-10 finish last year capped off by a bid to the WNIT.
 
“The number one reason that we have had the improvement we've had the last two years is culture,” Turner says. “It's just been outstanding … The way these players have gone about doing things the right way has taken us to the next level.”
 
As they transition to the Missouri Valley, the Racers may be primed to continue their ascent. They bring back seven of eight players who averaged at least 10 minutes per game last season, including 2022 Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year Katelyn Young and three other All-OVC selections.
 
“We have a very mature team, a very talented team,” Turner says. “We have an opportunity to take even another step.”
 
It all starts with Young, one of 20 players and just four underclassmen in the country last year to average 20-plus points per game. The Racer offense is once again built around the 6-foot-1 post this year.
 
“When you have a post player like Katelyn, you have to be able to put people around her that can spread the floor and that can draw defenses out to open up things for her,” Turner says.
 
Turner has been able to do just that. Last year’s starting lineup surrounded Young with four players that shot above 36% from deep, and that looks likely to be the case again this season. It’s a key reason that, according to Synergy, Young is the only returning mid-major player in the country to shoot above 63% on at least 150 postups last season.
 
“It’s awesome to have a post presence,” says fifth-year point guard Macey Turley. “With her passing – everybody is going to be doubling in on her, so her being able to pass out of those doubles and find open shooters is really what makes our team better.”
 
While the Racers lose one of those shooters, four-year starter Lex Mayes, to graduation, they bring in reinforcements this year via the transfer portal: guards Jordyn Hughes (Eastern Illinois) and Jenna Walker (Western Kentucky) and forward Fruzsina Horvath (St. Francis Brooklyn).
 
Young believes Hughes has the range to help fill the void left by Mayes’ 38.6% mark from 3. “[Hughes] can really hit it from anywhere,” Young says. “I’m excited to see what she’s gonna be able to do.”
 
The numbers back it up – Hughes shot over 40% from 3 last year and made 7-of-13 shots from deep in her four games against Murray State the last two seasons. And according to Turley, Hughes is also adept at using that threat to open up penetration.
 
“Her shot fake is unbelievable,” Turley says. “She'll shot fake, get the defender in the air, and then she'll drive by you to get to the rim.”
 
Walker, who Turley says will allow her to play more off ball, begins her Racers career with three years of eligibility remaining after finishing 12th in the nation in free throw rate in limited action as a freshman at Western Kentucky. She adds another weapon to a team that got to the free throw line more than any other in the OVC over the last two seasons.
 
Horvath deepens Turner’s well of stretch bigs as the only junior in Division I to shoot at least 40% from 3 with over five rebounds per game in each of her first two seasons.
 
Murray State adds two freshmen to this year’s frontcourt. Halle Langhi and Julie Puente Valverde, both 6-foot-2, become two of the three tallest players on the roster.
 
The Racers’ backcourt also adds a pair of freshmen. There’s Briley Pena, yet another shooter who can run the point or play off the ball and who may have the keys to the future.
 
“One of my goals this year is to kind of hand over the torch to her,” says Turley, who has spent the last four seasons as the team’s lead guard. “She’s gonna be leading this program in the MVC whenever I’m gone, so just kind of teaching her my way, teaching her how to be the floor general, what coach wants, and just things like that.”
 
Then there’s Zoe Stewart, who Turner says comes in with a unique skill set.
 
“Stewart brings a different dimension to our team,” Turner says. “She's an athletic kid that can get her own shot. She can get the space and pull up and shoot the jumper, and she just gives us some different things that some of our other guards don’t.”
 
Turner believes her group of newcomers can collectively contribute enough to take some of the load off of the returning core of starters. Which ones see the court the most, Turner says, is an open competition.
 
“It's all gonna be about who produces when the lights are on,” Turner says. “But I definitely feel like we're gonna be able to go deeper into our bench this year, which is gonna allow us to be more prepared for the rigors of a 20-game conference schedule.”
 
One player who Turner can always rely on to produce under the bright lights is Turley, who has played for Turner for nearly a decade dating back to their time together at Murray High School.
 
“She’s the glue that holds us together,” Turner says. “She drives the car, and we just have a lot of trust in her.”
 
Turley has already accumulated a historic list of accomplishments, but she has even loftier aspirations for her final season. “Watching the WNBA Finals and Chelsea Gray shooting lights out from a guard position … that’s a goal for me this year,” she says. “And then just making everybody else around me better.”
 
It’s those high standards that have vaulted Turley up the Murray State record books in several categories. The three-time All-OVC First Teamer has started all 113 games she’s played, and she needs just three more starts and 11 more games played to break Murray State’s program records in both.
 
Turley is the most accurate free throw shooter in school history with a career mark of 89.2%, and if she maintains that clip this season she’ll finish in the top 15 all time in Division I. She’s also well on pace to conclude her career first in program history in minutes, double-digit scoring games, made 3s, and assists, and she’s 299 points away from becoming the fourth member of the school’s 2,000-point club.
 
The Murray State icon isn’t focused on those numbers, but she knows her legacy may sink in when her time in Racer blue comes to a close.
 
“I'm just locked in to just being better every day,” she says. “Once I'm done, maybe I'll kind of look back and hopefully I'll cherish the moments.”
 
Murray State heads into its first season in the Missouri Valley Conference with plenty of other returning talent alongside Turley and Young. Back on the wings are starters Alexis Burpo and Hannah McKay as well as last season’s top reserves Bria Sanders-Woods and Cayson Conner.
 
Conner played the fewest minutes per game among that group last season, but that didn’t diminish her impact.
 
“Cayson Conner is a difference maker for our program,” Turner says. “She just does the little things … She’s not gonna show up in the stat sheet most of the time, but a lot of times [last year] as a coaching staff we would look at the game and we would say she’s the MVP because she makes the right pass and she makes the right play.”
 
“She’s just a great IQ player – knowing what needs to be done,” Young adds. “She’ll give me some tips if I need it.”
 
Sanders-Woods ceded some time to Burpo as a sophomore last season after starting 16 games to Burpo’s five in 2020-21, but Young marvels at the 5-foot-8 point guard’s artistry at the rim. “[Sanders-Woods] being able to find layups that I don’t know how she can make but she just does [and] being able to pressure the other guards is really helpful,” Young says.
 
Burpo enters her fifth and final season as a Swiss Army knife. “Alexis is one of those players that just does a little bit of everything,” Turner says. “She gets things going by cutting, passing, being in the right place defensively with her long arms.”
 
The fourth returning starter, McKay, more than doubled her freshman scoring average last year as a sophomore and should continue to complement Murray State’s Batman and Robin this season.
 
“There were several key games last year that [defenses] were focusing on Katelyn and Macey and we just needed that third person to step up, and Hannah did that,” Turner says. “Her game continues to improve – she's a very athletic force. She can score in several different ways, and we're trying to add a few facets to her game this year to make her even more dangerous.”
 
Turner has lived up to her name – she’s turned the program around. Now, it’s time to ride that wave into a more challenging league. Led by Turley’s poised perimeter play and Young’s powerful post presence, the Racers look up to the task.