How Will It Shake Out?

(St. Louis, MO) – On this final day of the Ohio Valley Conference regular season, there are several seeds for the league tournament still to be settled. All 12 teams play today and nine of them have a seeding issue for which to contend.

Austin Peay (17-12, 12-5) is set at third place, no matter what. Morehead State (7-21, 3-14) has been mathematically eliminated and Southeast Missouri (14-16, 8-9) is ineligible for the conference celebration next week in Evansville.

Everybody else is scratching!

If Murray State (23-5, 15-2) wins at Austin Peay today, then the Racers win the uncontested conference title and Belmont (22-8, 14-3) finishes second. If the Racers lose and Belmont would force a tie by defeating Tennessee State, the Bruins would receive the number one seed because of their victory over MSU earlier this season.

TSU (15-13), Jacksonville State (17-11) and Tennessee Tech (18-12) are tied for fourth place at 10-7. The Gamecocks visit the Golden Eagles today so one of those teams will finish no worse than fifth. One of them will tie the Tigers either for fifth or fourth depending on the outcome of their game with Belmont.

Tennessee State wins the tie-breaker over Jacksonville State and loses to Tennessee Tech due to head-to-head match-ups.

If Eastern Illinois (10-18, 6-11) defeats Southern Illinois Edwardsville at home today, the Panthers are the seventh seeded team. However, if the Cougars (9-19, 5-12) earn the road win, all bets are off! The two teams will have split their regular season games and the tie-breaker moves to how they fared against the teams above them in descending order. Since they were both swept by the top three teams, whomever finishes fourth in the above scenario would determine the seventh place team.

Once we get this far, the only way EIU holds on to seventh place, is if Tennessee Tech finishes fourth.

What if Eastern Kentucky (11-19, 5-12) wins too and we have a three-way tie for seventh. The same process ensues and once again SIUE would pick up the seventh seed if TSU or JSU finish fourth. After that is settled, both SIUE and EIU defeated Eastern Kentucky and the Colonels would be on the outside looking in.

If the Colonels and Cougars both lose, the Cougars win every tie-breaker. Even if it becomes a three-way tie, including UT Martin, the Cougars will play in their first OVC Tournament under coach Jon Harris.

EKU’s only hope is to win their game at Morehead State and hope SIUE loses at Eastern Illinois. In every scenario, a Cougar victory eliminates EKU and UT Martin.

You and find great information about the tournament at OVC Basketball Championships

Do Good