The reigning West Coast Conference Women’s Basketball champions, Oregon State University, has been officially predicted to repeat their success.
OSU was honored with some preseason flowers: the team was ranked first in the WCC preseason coaches poll, meaning that the league’s coaches expect the Beavs to win the WCC again this year.
OSU Head Coach Scott Rueck said he figured the expectation to succeed might come, but that it wasn’t important to him.
“I would assume we’ll be predicted to have a good year as opposed to a year ago, but I don’t care about that, we haven’t done anything yet,” Rueck said a few days before the poll results were announced.
“So who will they become? All the signs that I’m seeing, I like what I’m seeing. So I think we’re going to be a typical Oregon State team that’s a tough out every night.”
Not only was the OSU team as a whole honored, three Beaver players were individually named to the preseason all-WCC team. Fourth-years Tiara Bolden and Catarina Ferreira, along with third-year Kennedie Shuler, got the nod for the 10-person all-WCC team.
Unfortunately for the Beavers, Ferreira’s nomination may have come too soon – she will be out for the entire season with a knee injury.
Ferreira was named the WCC tournament MVP last season.
“Our hearts hurt for Cat, but we’re going to do everything we can to make her proud this season,” Shuler said. “All of us have to step up and fill her role, and I’m confident that we’ll do so.”
At the start of last season, both Ferreira and Bolden were expected to leave the team, since it would be their last eligible season to play. However, the NCAA offered an extra year of eligibility in December 2024 to athletes who played at a non-NCAA school (i.e., junior colleges) and would have run out of eligibility following the 2024-2025 season.
Since both Bolden and Ferreira competed at the junior college level prior to joining OSU and would have exhausted their eligibility at the end of last season, they both were granted an extra season to play at Oregon State.
“I’m very excited, just because last year was supposed to be my last year,” Bolden said before the season began. “So just to be able to have another opportunity with these girls, with the community, from the coaching staff, just being poured into and having another opportunity, it just means the world.”
Since Ferreira is injured and out for the season, it’s possible she could play for the Beavs next year by taking a medical year that would need to be granted by the NCAA. A timeline for when this would happen is unknown at this time.
“She hasn’t redshirted yet, so I would assume,(she’ll have another year of eligibility), and it sounds positive,” Rueck said. “But I can’t speak into the details of it.”
Shuler, OSU’s starting point guard, has played more minutes for the Beavers than any player currently in the program.
“Definitely a lot of hardships last year, lots of lessons for me to learn. It’s like cliché, everybody is like, ‘Oh yeah, you got to learn the hard way sometimes,’ and it’s true,” Shuler said. “All those lessons, all the lows – obviously there’s highs to come – all those lessons I’m super grateful for.”
This season’s WCC tournament will take place March 5-10, 2026 in Las Vegas. Twenty of OSU’s 30 regular season games will be played at home.
“Coming into this year, everybody has a chip on their shoulder and everybody’s hungry,” Bolden said. “I believe coming into this year we all have something to prove, and I believe that having that experience (winning the WCC championship) is going to help us later on.”
