First Full Night of OVC Action

Big Games in Tennessee

(St. Louis, MO) – Full blast conference season is upon us. Tonight is the first full night of OVC action. Five games being played tonight with Morehead State sitting out the action. There are two, seemingly very big games going on in Tennessee.

After Morehead’s win over Little Rock on Tuesday, the Eagles and the Lindenwood Lions are the early leaders in the Ohio Valley Conference race at 1-0. While every team wants to get off to a great start in league play a couple of games stand out.

Tennessee-Based Games

Defending OVC regular season champion Southeast Missouri travels to Tennessee Tech for the conference opener for each team. Each team is 5-6 and started the season slowly. SEMO has won three consecutive games and the Golden Eagles have won two straight.

The Redhawks are the OVC’s highest rated team according to the what we call our ‘Monday Metrics’. We combine the rankings found at KenPom.com, the NCAA’s NET measurements, and those at both BartTorvic.com and EvanMiya.com.

SEMO’s combined metric of 214.8 leads five OVC teams in our metric’s top 250. Tech is one of those five coming in at 249.5. Tech is the OVC’s second highest scoring team at 80.8 points-per-game and they lead the conference with an outstanding .476 field goal percentage.

Each team boasts of two players in the league’s top twenty in scoring and each has a player at the top of the assists race. SEMO’S Braxton Stacker (14.1 ppg) leads the OVC with an amazing .943 free-throw percentage and guard Luke Almodovar is contributing 13.6 points per contest.

TTU’s Dani Pounds (12.3) is third in free throw percentage at .848. Mekhi Cameron chips in 11.6 points per night. While Golden Eagle guard Ty Owens leads the conference with 4.5 assists per game, SEMO’s B.J. Ward is second at 4.3.

Tennessee-Based – Round Two

The other Tennessee-based game finds UT Martin (8-3) visiting Tennessee State (6-4). Jeremy Shulman’s team is second to Lindenwood among OVC teams with a 184 NET ranking. The Skyhawks own notable wins over UNLV and Bradley, but both of those wins came before Dragos Lungu’s potentially season-ending injury. How they fare against a surging TSU team and the rest of the OVC is yet to be seen.

Tennessee State has won four its last five games including their own win over the Runnin Rebels.

This will be an interesting study. Whie the Tigers like to play with pace and score in bunches, the Skyhawks hang their hat on the defense and rebounding. UTM isn’t the most gifted offensive team in the OVC, particularly with Lungu on the side-lines.

TSU is.

Aaron Nkrumah (16.6 ppg) is second in scoring and leads the OVC with 3.3 steals per game. Travis Harper II’s 15 point scoring average places him fifth and Dante Harris is second to his teammate with two thefts per game and is chipping in nearly 13 points per game. TSU leads the OVC with 11.2 steals per contest.

Conference leader in rebounds (9.1) is Andrija Bukumirovic who leads UT Martin and is sixth overall in scoring (14.7). Outstanding freshman Matas Deniusas ptiches in nearly 14 points too.

The Skyhawks lead the OVC in scoring defense, three-point percentage defense, rebounding margin and made three-pointers. They are second in all defensive field goal percentage.

First Full Night – Other Three Games

Defending tournament champion Southern Illinois Edwardsville (7-4) visits Eastern Illinois (2-8, 0-1). Lindenwood (6-4, 1-0) entertains Western Illinois, and a pair of 3-7 teams face off when Little Rock travels to Southern Indiana.

Any road victory would be worth its weight in gold and defending the home court is a must for teams that want to compete in the conference race.

SIUE is second to UT Martin in scoring defense and first in defensive field goal percentage. Cougar forward Ring Malith (16.3) is the OVC’s third leading scorer and guard Jack Campion is the league leader in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Southern Indiana boasts of the league’s top two three-point shooters in Ismail Habib and Kaden Brown. They are numbers one and two in both three-point percentage and converted triples.

Lindenwood is the league’s most potent offense (81.4 ppg) and lead with 16.4 assists per night. Reigning ‘Freshman of the Year’ Jadis Jones is the OVC’s fourth leading scorer (16.0) and third leading rebounder (8.2). The 6’6 wing is the OVC’s most efficient shooter, making over 67 percent of his shots.

We’ll know a lot more about this league on Friday morning.

Do Good

 

Editor: Cover photo of Aaron Nkrumah, courtesy of tsutigers.com.