When the Illinois State University women’s basketball team opens the regular season on Monday, November 3, at CEFCU Arena against Dayton, head coach Kristen Gillespie will be glad to have a couple of veteran players on the floor to lend their leadership to a young team.

Speaking after her team’s 89-46 exhibition game win over Illinois Wesleyan on October 26, at home, Gillespie, who is beginning her ninth year, expressed her appreciation for the versatility and ball-handling ability of Addison Martin and Nevaeh Thomas, both 6-1 forwards.

“What a luxury when you have Addi and Vay that you can throw back to and they can initiate play,” Gillespie said.

Only seven players return from last season’s team (24-13, 14-6 Missouri Valley Conference), Martin, a redshirt senior, and Thomas, a junior, will be looked to for their basketball and leadership skills. 

“We’re a young team, so It’s a good challenge for both of us to be great role models for the younger players on and off the court,” Martin said. “It’s fun and exciting and will have its ups and downs, but that comes with anything. It’s nothing that we can’t handle.”

Thomas agreed and said she’s following the example Martin previously set.

“Addi took a big leadership role last year and at the beginning of this year,” she said. “My goal this year, especially this summer, was finding my role in the leadership and kind of taking a little bit off of Addi’s plate and helping her out.”

Both are getting it done in the classroom as well. Thomas last year earned MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team honors with a 4.0 GPA in exercise science. Martin ’25 already earned her bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies and is currently in her first year of the MBA program, which she’ll complete in 2027.

As roommates the last couple of years since arriving on campus at the same time, Martin, a native of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Thomas, who is from Kenosha, Wisconsin, already look out for each other. In some ways, their roles as leaders will be an extension of their own friendship.

“With so many newcomers, it’s interesting to see how it’s going to come together, but off the court, these girls are amazing people, which makes it so much easier on the court,” Thomas said. “We’re a young team, so things are going to take a minute to figure out. But honestly, I’m really impressed.”

Martin said as a fifth-year player, she’ll be doing everything she can to help make the team better. She said, young or not, this team will bring intensity.

“We’re super young, and it’s going to take a little bit more time for us to get our feet under us, but we’re very competitive,” she said.

She added that fans can expect a hardworking group on the floor that gives 110% every game.

“We’re going to be a really fun group to watch, and we play really fast,” Martin said. “And we’re a lot better of a defensive team.”

Thomas said she’s excited to see how much the team develops over the next few months.

“We have so much more growing to do as a team, which is great because it would suck if we were at our best in October,” she said.

Like Martin, Thomas is impressed with team speed.

“We have super-fast, athletic guards, including Trista (5-8 sophomore Trista Fayta), who has a consistent pace throughout the entire game, which is so cool,” she said. “Plus, our off guards are so fast. I’m going to be running a lot more, but I think it’s going to be fun.”

Gillespie said the team will be a work in progress early, but fans who were at the exhibition game saw that these Redbirds hustle.

“They saw a team that’s going to play hard,” she said. “We play together. We share the ball. We rebound. We play the game the right way.”

Fayta came off the bench to score six points in the first half against Illinois Wesleyan. She finished with 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and had 10 assists for a double-double. Gillespie called her performance unbelievable.

“I’ve just been so proud of the work that Trista has put in, starting from last year,” she said. “She was ready for this moment.”

With 12 points and 10 rebounds, Thomas also recorded a double-double against the Titans. Martin had 14 points and nine rebounds, just missing her own double-double.

“At the end of the day, if we do it the right way, and we continue to have belief in one another and the work ethic that this team has shown since June, I think we’ll be in a position, when we head to Iowa City (for the MVC Tournament at Coralville, Iowa, in March of 2026) to be one of those (top) teams. We want to win a championship. These kids want to play in the NCAA Tournament. That will always be the goal. This program has been built for that, and this why each one of these women are here.”

Gillespie said with seven players who had never put a uniform on for Illinois State, getting more time playing together is crucial.

“This team needs every second together,” she said. “We’re so new that we don’t have a tremendous amount of sweat equity built up. We lost our whole backcourt.

Although the team made it to the WNIT Fab 4 last season, falling three points short of the championship game, Thomas echoed her coach’s words that her sights are set on the NCAA. 

“We want more than the WNIT this season, and that starts now,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t start in February and March. We need to show up on Day 1, Game 1. I’m just excited for that journey. We have big goals this year.”

Gillespie said she carried that same theme into her locker room speech for the Illinois Wesleyan game, which she ended this way: “This is the first chapter of our story. We’re playing the long game. We want to become really good in March.”