Ohio Valley Traffic Jam

(St. Louis, MO) – Belmont and Murray State seem to be pulling away from the pack in the Ohio Valley Conference’s ‘Tour de OVC’, but the peloton is as packed as possible. The race to Nashville’s ‘Music City Madness’ tournament is extremely competitive, and every conference game seems to be of the ‘must win’ variety.

Take a look at Thursday’s OVC games. The momentum swings and thus the places in the overall standings are like watching election results in early November. Five of Thursday’s six games were decided by seven points or less, OR were decided in overtime.

Belmont (12-4, 6-0) and Murray State (11-9, 5-1) remain the top teams in the OVC, but beneath them, seven teams have between two and four losses. Winning on the road, like Morehead State (8-11, 4-2) and Tennessee Tech (8-13, 4-2) did, brings about a huge shift in the standings.

The top eight teams in the final standings earn the right to visit Nashville the first weekend in March and right now Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Illinois and Southern Illinois Edwardsville are on the outside looking in, but those seven other teams separated by two losses are all vulnerable to some version of a tie-breaker.

So when Morehead defeats Austin Peay in Clarksville, it’s a two-game swing and the Governors fall to 2-4 in the league (6-14 overall) and they fall to ninth, and out of the playoffs, but they are only one game behind three teams, so multiple teams are at risk. Senior guard Xavier Moon scored a career high 26 points in the road win.

UT Martin’s (13-8, 3-3) double overtime win over upset minded Eastern Illinois (9-10, 1-5) kept the Panthers buried and allowed the Skyhawks to stay out of a tie with APSU for that final spot in the play-offs.

There is a fine line dividing play-off positioning and success and failure in the OVC.

Tech’s road win at Tennessee State (12-7, 3-3) created a three-way tie at 4-2 for the third position in the standings and knocked the Tigers from ‘contender’ status. In that overtime thriller, Aleksa Jugovic scored 10 of his 30 points in the overtime session.

Saturday, the league’s three worst teams are all on the road, in do-or-die scenarios. The three teams tied at 3-3 all play at home as Southeast Missouri (8-13) hosts EIU, Tennessee State entertains JSU and UT Martin welcomes winless SIUE.

Saturday could be moving day for one or more of these teams.