Get To Know a College Basketball Mid-Major: Ohio Valley Conference

You know all about the Power 6 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 31 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness. It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the Ohio Valley Conference. The Ohio Valley Conference is in a weird spot, but at least the 2025-2026 season marks the final year of that being the case. The problem is that two of its teams — Southern Indiana and Lindenwood — are formerly Division II schools, and are in the final of four years of transitioning into Division I. Neither is eligible for March Madness until the 2026-2027 season, per NCAA rules, which means that if either were to actually win the OVC conference tournament, the automatic bid would go to the runner-up in that championship game. Hey, guess what is a genuine possibility this season? There are 11 teams in the OVC, but just the top eight make it to the conference tournament in March. The third- and fourth-ranked teams get a bye to the quarterfinals, while the first- and second-ranked ones wait until the semifinals, significantly shortening the path to the championship game and Ohio Valley’s automatic bid. OVC — Men’s College Basketball Leaders: Tennessee-Martin is the conference leader through Feb. 4, as it’s 10-2 in Ohio Valley play, two games up on Tennessee State, Morehead State and Southeast Missouri State. As just one of those three teams can end up with the double bye that would pop it into the semifinals of the conference tournament, things are hotly contested at present. And SIU-Edwardsville is right behind that group at 8-5, as well, tied with Lindenwood. That’s five of the first six teams in the conference separated by all of half-a-game. Things thin out after that, as Little Rock is 6-6, Eastern Illinois 5-7 and Tennessee Tech 4-8. One of those three teams is on pace to be left out of the tournament entirely. Southern Indiana is 2-10, so its March Madness ineligibility is unlikely to be a concern, and Western Illinois is in last after losing all 12 of its Ohio Valley matchups so far. UT Martin isn’t just 10-2 in the conference, but also 18-5 overall and the conference leader in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, at 170th. Tennessee State is the next-highest, at 230th, with Western Illinois at the bottom at 361st. The Skyhawks are a legitimately great rebounding team, averaging 41.1 per game, good for 19th in all of Division I. They have a bottom-tier offense, however — KenPom’s Offensive Rating puts UT Martin at 274th without even adjusting for the weaker conference — but the defense is nearly a top-100 unit as far as raw numbers go. It ranks in the top 50 in both steals and blocks per game. Junior forward Andrija Bukumirović is the standout, as he’s the Skyhawk’s leading scorer at 14.8 points per game, and pulls down a team-best 8.3 rebounds as well. Overall, though, the best thing the Skyhawks do on offense is grab offensive boards, where it ranks 19th in the nation with 13.7 per game, but part of that is UT Martin shooting under 44% on the season. It ranks 267th of 365 D-I teams in shooting percentage. Ohio Valley only had the automatic bid in each of the last three years, and in 2023, Southeast Missouri State was part of the First Four and eliminated before the round of 64 began. So winning the conference — or losing in the final to ineligible Lindenwood — is going to matter. OVC — Women’s College Basketball Leaders: Whereas ineligible Southern Indiana is likely a non-factor in the men’s tournament, on the women’s side, the Screaming Eagles are 9-3 in Ohio Valley play and behind only 10-2 Western Illinois. Morehead State is tied for second, while Lindenwood, the other team ineligible for March Madness, is 9-4. As of right now, half of the teams slated to receive an Ohio Valley conference tournament bye are ineligible for anything besides bragging rights should they win the whole thing. Little Rock and Tennessee-Martin are both 7-5, while Tennessee Tech (5-7) and SEMO (4-8) are in position for the last two tourney spots. That would leave SIUE (3-10), Eastern Illinois (2-10) and Tennessee State (2-10) short of qualifying. Western Illinois has the best player in the conference, senior and combo guard-forward Mia Nicastro. She not only leads Ohio Valley in scoring, but is fifth in Division I women’s basketball, and is pulling down over 10 rebounds a game, too. Nicastro is shooting 91% on free throws and works primarily from inside the arc, where her 6-foot-2 frame has helped her to 53.3% shooting. She might not play on the best team in the OVC, however. Lindenwood is 96th in NET, one spot up on the Leathernecks. Southern Indiana is next, at 120th, then Morehead State is 193rd followed by Tennessee Tech at 198th. None of those teams are going to attract the attention of the Selection Committee for an at-large bid — the conference has played a combined 15 Quad 1 matchups, while teams like UCLA and USC have played in 13 and 12 on their own — which makes the tournament championship that much more important. Ohio Valley has had just an automatic bid to March Madness in each of the last three seasons, and in both 2023 and 2024 its representative took part in the tournament as one of the First Four before the round of 64. With Lindenwood and Southern Indiana ineligible for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the favorites for the automatic bid at this point are Western Illinois and Morehead State. And the Leathernecks likely have the advantage there, given they have the 82nd-best offense in D-I at 99.1 points per game owing to Nicastro, compared to Morehead State’s 214th-ranked offense. With the defenses both a comparable level of middling, that’s going to matter. Oh, and junior guard Raegan McCowan could be back from her elbow injury on her non-shooting arm before the end of the season — she’s missed almost the entirety of conference play, and Western Illinois is first in the conference without her despite the fact that, pre-injury, she already had over 1,500 career points and was on pace to become the school’s all-time scoring leader. As is, McCowan is at 17 points per game in the 10 games she has played — if the Leathernecks get her back before the conference tournament, that will boost their offense even further.