OKLAHOMA CITY - The Mid-America Christian University women's basketball team enters the 2019-20 season with head coach Hannah Moeller and the Evangels riding a wave of momentum after back-to-back NCCAA National Championships. The Evangels have built a team which has been to three straight NCCAA Tournaments, and Moeller and the Evangels know that part of what makes a championship team is a schedule that provides challenges ti build the character of the group. On Wednesday afternoon, MACU released their 2019-20 women's basketball schedule, which once again is highlighted by a difficult non-conference slate before the grinding road through Sooner Athletic Conference play.

"We are excited about our schedule," Moeller said. "We've been able to schedule that we've never played before, and that should be a great challenge for us. We look forward to competing in the SAC, as it provides our team with an extremely difficult conference slate as well."

The Evangels open their schedule with three straight games at home beginning on October 25. For the third straight season, MACU will begin the slate with a date with the Thunder from Manhattan Christian College, but the schedule immediately gets tougher. MACU will face Evangel University (Mo.) - who posted a 19-11 record in 2018-19 - on November 1, and then on November 5, MACU will welcome former SAC rival Oklahoma Christian to the Gaulke Activity Center. The game will mark MACU's first home game against OC since January 2, 2012, and the Eagles figure to come in looking for revenge after MACU surprised OC with an 84-78 win in Edmond last season.

MACU's first road trip of the year will be a southward swing through Texas, beginning with an exhibition game on November 7 at the University of North Texas. There, Moeller will lead the Evangels into the Super Pit for the third straight season to take on the Mean Green - where her older brother Roman - who was MACU's head coach from 2010-13 - is an assistant coach.

After the trip to Denton, MACU will head to Austin, Texas where they will battle Huston-Tillotson University for the first time in the NAIA era of MACU basketball. The Rams are another solid non-conference foe, as they have rattled off four straight winning seasons including a year in which they made a trip to the NAIA Division I Women's Basketball National Championship in 2016.

MACU will return to the Sooner State and participate in the Oklahoma City Classic at Oklahoma City University's Abe Lemons Arena on November 15-16, taking on Haskell Indian Nations University (Kan.) and Philander Smith College (Ark.). The remainder of the non-conference schedule features an exhibition game at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri on December 31, home games against Nebraska Christian College (Dec. 3) and Kansas Wesleyan (Dec. 31), and a home-and-home with Bacone College (Okla.). The Warriors dropped out of the SAC following the 2018-19 campaign, but the teams will still play in Muskogee on January 2, and in Oklahoma City on February 1.

The SAC schedule opens for MACU at home on November 21 when they host Langston University. The Evangels will play 20 conference games in 2019-20, three of which will be before the Christmas break. MACU will make a trip to Central Christian on November 23, and a December 13 jaunt to Chickasha, Oklahoma to take on the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma is also on the dockett.

MACU's will open SAC play in the new year at home against John Brown University (Ark.) before heading west to the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. MACU will battle Wayland Baptist University (Texas), Oklahoma Panhandle State University, and Texas Wesleyan University before returning home on January 18 to battle Southwestern Assemblies of God University (Texas). Beginning that night, MACU will play four straight games in Oklahoma City - three at home and one across town at OCU - before heading to JBU to round out the month.

Once the calendar turns to February, MACU will leave the state of Oklahoma only one more time in the regular season, taking a trip to SAGU on February 13. The only other road games in the month are at Southwestern Christian University (Feb. 22) and Langston (Feb. 29) on the final two Saturdays of the regular season. Six of MACU's final nine games are on their home floor, including three straight from to start the month. Their final home game comes on February 27 when the Evangels will celebrate Senior Night against Central Christian College of Kansas. 

The SAC tournament will open on March 3 with the quarterfinal round, which will once again be hosted by the top four seeds in the bracket, before moving to WBU in Plainview, Texas for the semis and final on March 6 and 7. The NAIA National Championship - the final Division I NAIA championship before the re-unification of the NAIA's two basketball divisions - will once again take place in Billings, Montana from March 18-24, and the NCCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship will run from March 18-21 at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana.