The men’s and women’s basketball teams at Moraine Valley are coming off a sensational season from last year and are looking to recapture that magic.
The men’s team improved from 15-16 in the 2024-25 season to 19-13 and reaching the semifinals of the division tournament last season. Guard Reggie Strong was named first team All Conference and looks to be the face of the team, which will go from 10 sophomores last season to six.
But this year will be a challenge as head coach Kyle Huppe returns only three players from last season. The standout of the three veterans is Strong, but all three are expected to be valuable pieces in maintaining the team’s identity.
“I’ve got to lean heavily on those guys to kind of be the ones to carry the culture on,” Huppe said. “We’ll have a heavy reliance on them and they have already been tasked with that to translate and keep the momentum with what we had last year culturewise.”
The men’s team has some tough games on deck including a trip to Iowa to face Iowa Central and Des Moines Area Community College, which both made the national tournament last season. The schedule also has Milwaukee Area Technical, which also made nationals, and the Highland Holiday Tournament to round out the non-conference slate.
As for the conference, there’s still some research to be done. No teams made the national tournament, and the quick turnarounds that junior college provides can make predicting how the regular season can go difficult.
“It’s so hard to tell because, similar to my team, everybody’s team is different,” Huppe said. “And that’s the fun part of it. You don’t really know what these teams will look like until you get into the first month or two of the season and see what other teams are doing in their non-conference schedule.”
The women, meanwhile, had their most successful season since 2018-19. The team won its regional tournament and made the national tournament for the first time since 2019. But the big question is how will it replace the production of last year’s sophomores. There are only four returning players, and conference player of the year and Division II First Team All-American Jadea Johnson graduated.
“Jadea is going to be hard to replace,” Coach Delwyn Jones said. “Even if we had someone with the same type of athleticism and determination.”
However, even with losing a lot of talent from last year, Jones is confident that this year’s team will once again contend.
“At the juco (level), there’s a hot, quicker turnover than in the four-year school, so you have to find the best available talent, and then take that talent and maximize what they bring to the table,” he said. “And so that’s what we are doing. I think that we’re going to be at the same level of having this ability to win this region and conference.”
The women’s regular season schedule begins with the Cyclones facing four straight teams that made the national tournament in Madison College, Parkland, Des Moines, and Lansing.
“We have four, maybe even five teams from the national tournament,” he said. “The conference is much tougher, and the region as a whole is tougher.”
One of the returning players from last season is sophomore Danielle Dempsey. She hopes to help newcomers to the team get used to being in college and help the freshmen feel at home.
“I mean obviously your first season in college is a tough one,” she said. “So if I move to just help them through it then that’s really all that matters.”
The team will also have a good number of transfers entering Moraine. Sophomore guard Alyssa Morris transferred from Rock Valley in Rockford and hopes to improve her role as a point guard.
“I think that we’re going to be at the same level of having this ability to win this region and conference.”
Women’s coach Delwyn Jones
“I need to be more vocal on the court, be a playmaker for my team, and also find the four-year (transfer school) that is going to be the best comfortability,” Morris said.
The Men’s and Women’s basketball seasons start on Oct. 30 when the teams travel to Bryant and Stratton (WI) and Madison College respectively. The men will play their first home game on Nov. 12 against Harper College, while the women’s home opener is set for Nov. 4 when they face off against Parkland College. Both teams start conference play in January and the regional playoffs start at the end of February.
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