MVC/OVC Challenge

(St. Louis, MO) – No one announced it, but there is an MVC/OVC Challenge going on this basketball season. With so many games connecting the two mid-major conferences I thought I’d bring you a front line ‘progress report’.

Wednesday I’ll be at the “SIU Showdown” when SIU Carbondale travels to Edwardsville for a contest with SIUE, but before that game is played let’s look at how the two leagues are competing and some of the key match ups yet to come.

In the early RPI numbers, the Missouri Valley is the seventh highest ranked conference and the Ohio Valley is 29^th so you would expect the MVC to hold a strong advantage over the OVC. But will that gap continue?

The MVC has won three of the first four games between the two leagues with the lone defeat coming this past weekend when Murray State defeated Drake. With 12 more games in ‘the Challenge’ and all of them between now and the turn of the year we will have a great read on how these two match up.

Southern Illinois and Murray State are at the center of a lot of these rivalry games. The Salukis play five OVC teams in their next seven contests. The Racers tangle with three MVC teams before Christmas. Since Murray is one of the standard bearers in the OVC there could be some real narrowing of that RPI deficit. Evansville (#15 in CIT’s mid-major poll) has the difficult task to meeting with Belmont (#6 in CIT) and Murray State.

SIU’s abundance of OVC games will be one barometer for how the leagues line up, but I love the Evansville games with Belmont and Murray. In both contests the high powered Aces with national scoring contender D.J. Balentine and big man Egidijus Mockevicius battling Belmont’s ball movement and outside game and the athleticism and versatility provided by the Racers.

The Valley has a three to one advantage, but December will tell the full story concerning these two leagues that we love to watch.

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