The OVC begins its tournament Wednesday night with all games being played at the Nashville Auditorium. The top seed is Murray State who blew through the 16-game conference slate without a loss, one of three teams nationally to go unbeaten in conference play. The Racers were taken to overtime twice and played four other single-digit games, so even though Murray is riding a 24-game winning streak, we shouldn’t assume they’re invincible.

The bottom four teams don’t get invited to the OVC tourney and Belmont gets a half-share of home-court advantage with the games being played in its backyard, so the format doesn’t do any favors to the Racers, either. According to this analysis, it’s about a coin flip whether Murray wins the title.

Head coach Steve Prohm does have one of the best point guards that most people haven’t heard of in sophomore Cameron Payne. He easily took the OVC kPOY honors, and his presence alone will make Murray the team to beat in the conference over the next two seasons.

OVC

All-kenpom.com: Cameron Payne, Murray State (kPOY); Corey Walden, Eastern Kentucky; Jarvis Williams, Murray State; Eric Stutz, Eastern Kentucky; Deville Smith, Tennessee-Martin.

March 4-7. All games played at Nashville.

                   Qtrs Semis Final Champ
1 Murray St.        100   100  76.1  50.9
2 E. Kentucky       100   100  60.2  25.9
3 Belmont           100  69.3  31.6  12.3
4 Tenn-Martin       100  56.5  14.5   6.0
5 Morehead St.     61.9  29.7   7.2   2.8
6 E. Illinois      52.7  16.7   4.7   1.1
8 SE Missouri St.  38.1  13.8   2.8   0.8
7 SIU Edwardsville 47.3  13.9   3.6   0.8