Ohio Valley Conference – Never Crazier

(St. Louis, MO) – The final day of the regular season is here and practically nothing has been decided about the seeding of the Ohio Valley Conference’s post season tournament, and Music City Madness starts Wednesday!

We know Belmont is the number one seed and has a double-bye into the semi-finals. We know that Southern Illinois Edwardsville, Eastern Illinois, Eastern Kentucky and last year’s tournament champion Austin Peay won’t be making the trip to Nashville, but besides that, nothing is settled.

Friday, the OVC’s outstanding media coordinator, Kyle Schwartz sent out a THREE-PAGE information sheet on the the play-off scenarios. THREE PAGES! That’s how crazy the final day will be, in this extremely competitive and balanced league.

Four of the seven teams are 8-7 and two are 9-6. Morehead State seems the safest at 10-5 to be the three seed, but wait! Maybe not. There are six OVC games Saturday, and only EIU’s visit to SIUE is free from high tournament seeding drama!

Southeast Missouri (14-16, 9-6) and UT Martin (19-11, 9-6) are tied for the top spot in the West Division and for the other double-bye in Nashville. Murray State is one game back (14-15, 8-7) and they travel to UT Martin. If SEMO wins, they are the division champion due to the calculus in Mr. Schwartz’s treatise on tie-breakers! If both the Redhawks and Skyhawks lose, forcing a three-way time with the Racers….SEMO wins anyway.

After the division winners are settled, the rest of the teams would be seeded 3-8 (regardless of division affiliation), but then the fun has just begun!

Should UTM and SEMO win and Morehead State loses, then the Skyawks become the third place team because they beat the Eagles on New Year’s Eve.

 

 

Jacksonville State, Tennessee Tech and Tennessee State are tied with Murray State at 8-7 and virtually anything can happen. Since none of those teams play each other, there is a scenario where Belmont is the top seed (they host TSU), SEMO would be number two with seven losses, Morehead State would be third with five losses, and the other FIVE TEAMS would all be 9-7.

By-the-way, Kyle Schwartz already has that one figured out too, but I won’t spoil the drama! The fourth seed is determined by a composite head-to-head metric amongst the five teams.

Saturday will be a wild day in the OVC!

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