Biggest OVC Game of the Season

TSU @ SEMO

(St. Louis, MO) – Winning the Ohio Valley Conference regular season title is within reach for three teams and two of them face off tonight. Tennessee State visits Southeast Missouri in the biggest OVC game of the season.

With Morehead State’s (18-12, 14-5) Tuesday night win, these two teams trail the Eagles by one-half game. The winner of tonight’s tilt between TSU (19-9, 13-5) and SEMO (18-11, 13-5) will move into a tie the MSU and give them the chance to finish as ‘co-champions’ with the Eagles.

All three of these teams are assured of at least a first-round bye at the OVC Championships.

UT Martin (20-9, 12-6) is lurking just behind these three teams. If the Skyhawks win out (they play TSU on Saturday), the Tigers win tonight’s game, Morehead loses tonight and the Redhawks win on Saturday, we would have a four-way tie for first place!

We love conference race chaos!

Tonight’s Biggest OVC Game

This showdown has everything you need in a potential championship game connection! The high-flying, up-tempo Tigers against the more traditional Redhawks. TSU is the league’s top-scoring (81.9 ppg) and shooting team (.473). Two of the OVC’s top three scorers wear the Tiger uniform.

Travis Harper II (18.7 ppg) and Aaron Nkrumah (18.3) are explosive scorers and Dante Harris  is the league’s second place distributor (5.2 assists per game).

SEMO’s attack is a little more pedestrian, but they are efficient. The second half emergence of Brandan Terry has strengthened their overall game. Luke Almodovar (14.5) is a game-changer and B.J. Ward (12.4 ppg & 3.4 apg) is quietly enjoying one of the best seasons in the league.

The Redhawks are third in scoring defense, defensive field goal percentage and rebounding margin. They play steady basketball.

SEMO won their earlier matchup in Nashville (91-82) as Marqueas Bell recorded a 22-point, twelve-rebound, double-double. Each team has won 12 of sixteen games since that early season contest.

The Redhawks are the defending regular season champs.

Other Games of Note

Obviously, UT Martin’s game with Tennessee Tech is huge for the Skyhawks, but the Golden Eagles are in a three-way battle for the seventh and eighth spots in the OVC tournament. TTU (13-16, 8-10) is tied with Little Rock (11-18, 8-10), and tied for those spots and Eastern Illinois (11-18, 7-11) is one game back.

While the Panthers play at Lindenwood tonight and at Southern Illinois Edwardsville on Saturday, Tech finishes at SEMO on Saturday. Little Rock entertains Morehead State tonight and Southern Indiana on Saturday.

If UT Martin would lose its last two games and either Lindenwood or SIUE would win both of  theirs, there would be tie for the league’s fourth-place spot. The Cougars and Lions each own 10-8 conference marks.

Special Notes

Lindenwood’s sixteen wins (16-13, 10-8) are tied for the program’s most ever in a Division 1 season. SIUE’s seventeen victories (17-12, 10-8) are tied for third most in its D1 history. The 17-wins in 2023-24 included one game at the end-of-the-season tournament. After never enjoying a winning D1 season, the Cougars have averaged nearly 19 wins per campaign over the past four years.

UT Martin’s 20 wins, marks the sixth time in D1 history for the Skyhawks to reach the 20-win plateau and Jeremy Shulman’s team is two victories shy of the program record of 22. TSU’s 19 victories snapped a string of three straight seasons of 18 or 17 wins.

SEMO’s back-to-back winning seasons are the first in over ten years and if they could win two more games would reach the twenty-win plateau for the second time in-a-row and just the fourth time in its 35-year Division 1 history.

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