OVC Tournament Day One

Chalk Survives

(St. Louis, MO) – It is tournament time in the Ohio Valley Conference and ‘chalk’ survived during the first day of the OVC Tournament. Fifth seeded Tennessee State and sixth seeded Southern Illinois Edwardsville survived their opening round games to reach the quarter finals.

Recaps

Three first-year transfers played significant roles as Tennessee State to its opening round win over Southern Indiana (78-64). Belmont transfers E.J. Bellinger (17 points & six boards) and Michael Shanks (13 points) joined Christian Brown (16 points & seven rebounds) in double-figure scoring. Eastern Illinois transfer Kinyon Hodges scored eleven points.

TSU (18-14) trailed by three points at the half.

The four Southern Illinois Edwardsville veteran leaders paved the way to an opening round win. For the second time in history and the second year in a row, the Cougars have advanced to the OVC Tournament’s quarterfinals. Four Cougars reached double figures as Ray’Sean Taylor (25), Damarco Minor (16), Shamar Wright (14) and Lamar Wright (11) are nearing the end of their run together as the Cougar core.

Minor added 14 rebounds for his fourth straight double-double.

SIUE’s seventeen wins (17-15) is the second best win total during its short Division 1 history. Last year’s team set the mark at 19. No Cougar squad had won more than twelve.

OVC Tournament Quarter Finals

The task becomes more difficult for TSU and SIUE. Fourth seeded Western Illinois (20-11, 13-5) awaits the Tigers and co-champion Morehead State (23-8, 13-4) stands in the Cougars’ way. Ironically, both the Tigers and Cougars split their regular season games with their more highly ranked opponents.

This is Western Illinois’ first season in the OVC.

Morehead is led by conference Player of the Year Riley Minix.

TSU tips with the Leathernecks at 6:30 pm and Morehead tangles with SIUE at 9:00 pm. Both games are on ESPN+.

When SIUE defeated Morehead State, they held the Eagles to a season low 48 points. At the time of that defeat it was the Eagles’ first non-power conference loss of the season. A late season three-game losing streak marred an otherwise brilliant Morehead State season. All-conference guard Jordan Lathon missed all three of those games. He is healthy now and the Eagles have won three straight games since his return.

Do Good

 

Editor: Cover photo courtesy of siuecougars.com.