Rice women picked, in the coaches' preseason poll, to defend their 2015 conference championship, receiving 9 first place votes to 3 votes for last year's runners-up, Middle Tennessee State. However, a note of caution: the Blue Raiders were not satisfied with last year's results, so, to join their top 3 returning runners (all from Kenya), they brought in 5 freshmen - 2 from Kenya, and 1 each from Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria.

The Rice men are picked to repeat in 4th, in spite of losing to graduation their top runner, Will Firth.