By Woodrow Carroll
A look at college conference membership can be a bit tricky, especially when considering a great many conferences vary membership depending on the sport. We take a look at the Ohio Valley Conference in men’s basketball.
The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) has 10 teams. Conference membership can vary depending on the sport and membership is never rock solid. Many schools move to seek greener financial pastures.
The University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, nicknamed the Mocs (short for moccasins), are an affiliate member of the OVC in beach volleyball. All too often such vital information gets overlooked.
Four states, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, provide the 10 schools in OVC men’s basketball. Illinois’ contribution are Eastern Illinois University (EIU) and Southern Illinois in Edwardsville.
Nine of the 10 OVC men’s basketball programs are public schools. The outlier is Belmont University, a private school in Nashville, Tenn..
Nashville is home to OVC members Belmont and Tennessee State, two schools with interesting histories.
Belmont started out as a woman’s school and only started accepting men in more recent years. It is just as well that the school has a male student body, with a mascot named Bruiser the Bruin.
Tennessee State was a traditional African-American institution. For many years, when segregation was in force, the school was called Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial.
Tennessee State produced, and is still producing, many fine athletes.
From 1957-1959, the Blue & White Tigers of then-Tennessee A&I won three consecutive NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) basketball championships. Leading the way for the Tigers was Dick Barnett, who was a starter for the New York Knicks in 1970 when they captured the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship. Barnett played on the 1973 Knicks as a reserve when New York captured its second NBA championship.
Barnett was part of a golden era in Indiana high school basketball.
In 1955, Barnett’s Gary Roosevelt team reached the championship game of the Indiana State tournament and company lost, 97-74, to the Oscar Robertson-led Indianapolis Crispus Attucks.
The Redhawks of Southeast Missouri (SEMO) in Cape Girardeau, are the lone Missouri school in the OVC. The Redhawks have a recognizable name to high school basketball fans in head coach Brad Korn.
Korn graduated from Plano High School in 1999 and as a senior led the Reapers to fourth place in the Class A boys tournament. From there Korn went on to play at Southern Illinois in Carbondale. More recently, Korn has been an assistant coach at Southern Illinois, Kansas State, Missouri State, and back to Kansas State prior to being named as the Southeast Missouri head coach in 2020.
Five of the OVC men’s basketball teams are in Tennessee. In addition to Belmont and Tennessee State, are Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee Tech, and Austin Peay. The Austin Peay Governors in Clarksville, Tenn. were named after the 1920s Tennessee governor.
Rounding out OVC membership are two Kentucky schools, the Murray Racers and Morehead Eagles.
The Murray State men were 20-2 overall and 10-0 in the OVC. One of the Racers’ two defeats was from highly-ranked Auburn, so the Racers might bare watching.