First a little reminder at how the OVC conference tournament works. The winner of each division will get the #1 and #2 seeds, based on record, along with a double bye into the semi-finals. After that teams are seeded according to conference record no matter what division they are in. Only the top 8 teams make the tournament. Right now Belmont will get the #1 seed. The next 7 teams are separated by only 1 game. The #3 and #4 seed will get a single bye.
Going into tonight's game three teams are tied at the top of the Western Division with 8-6 conference records. Those teams are SEMO, Murray St. and UT-Martin. With two games remaining for all three teams Murray has the toughest schedule. Both SEMO and UT-Martin will host Murray and Austin Peay. As you can see the Racers will have to go on the road to both SEMO and UT-Martin. SEMO owns the tie-breaker over Martin so all they have to do is win both remaining games and they get the #2 seed. It's VERY possible that the two teams that finish second and third in the West fall all the way to the #5-#8 seed and don't get any bye.
In conference road games this year Murray is 3-3 while SEMO is 5-1 in conference home games. SEMO won the first meeting at Murray 75-74. Last Saturday Murray got benched slapped at home by E. Illinois 82-65. About one minute into that game Demarcus Croaker got knocked out of the game with a foot injury. I see on some sites that he is listed as questionable for tonight's game. The word I get from Murray is that he suffered a broken bone in his foot and will have season ending surgery. This is a big loss for Murray as he is one of their best on the ball defenders. In SEMO's last game out they completely dismantled a good UT-Martin team 90-61. In that game SEMO made 16 three point shots. They have 7 players that shoot 40.0% or better from three. They have become a very good offensive team. In six conference home games they are shooting 53.8% from the floor, 44.5% from the arc, and 76.9% from the line.
This will be the first meaningful game played in the Show Me Center in years and I can promise you the atmosphere will be electric and very loud. These two teams usually always play good games against each other. For the first time in years I do believe that SEMO has the edge over Murray going into this one and I like them to pull out another home win.
Now having said all that I have been saying all year this SEMO team is very fragile. Except for Trey Kellum they don't have much of an inside scoring presence. So it matters a lot more to SEMO how the ref's call this one. Trey must stay out of foul trouble and on the court.
5* #576 SEMO + 1 -105