OVC Conference Tournament Preview and Predictions

OVC 2023 Conference Tournament Predictions

Favorite

Morehead State

After losing Murray State and Morehead State’s Johni Broome, the OVC was looking like one of the weakest conferences in college basketball. And, unfortunately, that hasn’t changed. But in this conference, despite losing C Johni Broome to Auburn, Morehead State’s guards have emerged and have carried this team to a 3-game lead in conference play. 

They’ve got some very good experience, are pretty consistent, and have just been the most dominant team in a struggling conference. They’re led by 5 '11 senior Mark Freeman, but also have two other reliable scorers in forward Alex Gross and sophomore guard Drew Thelwell, who has been playing very well recently, scoring 15, 19, and 25 in three of his last 5 games. 

Like I said before, they aren’t amazing, but are good enough to emerge in a weak OVC.

Sleeper

Tennessee State

Unlike Morehead State, Tennessee State is not very balanced and consistent. Starting with their pure stats, they’re 52nd in the country in points per game, but give up a subpar 75 points per game. 

They have one leading scorer in guard Jr. Clay at 19PPG, and 3 other guys at around 12 PPG. This inconsistent scoring is a good reason for them being 18-13 but with wins against Tennessee Tech, Lipscomb, and UT Martin. 

They’ve beaten every team in the OVC except for Morehead State, as they lost to them twice despite shooting 55% and 38% from 3 in those two games. I don’t know if they can get over that hump, but if they’re in the position that they have to play 40 minutes of good basketball to clinch the OVC title, I think anything is possible.

Bracket Prediction