• 2017-18 OVC Men's Basketball Preseason Release (PDF) | Women's Preseason Release | Media Day Live Stream on OVCDN | Media Day Photo Gallery
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - In a vote of Ohio Valley Conference head men’s basketball coaches and sports information directors
Belmont has been picked the preseason favorite for the 2017-18 season. It marks the third-straight year the Bruins have been tabbed preseason favorites.
Belmont, who has won four of the past five OVC regular season championships, picked up 18 of 24 first-place votes in being tabbed the preseason favorites. After using it for five years, divisional play in the OVC has been eliminated with teams going back to being ranked 1-12 in the standings. Also after six years of teams playing 16 Conference games, OVC teams will play an 18-game Conference schedule beginning this season. OVC basketball teams last played an 18-game schedule from 2008-09 through 2010-11.
The Bruins received 235 total points in being picked first.
Jacksonville State, the defending OVC Tournament champions, picked up three first-place votes and were tabbed second with 213 points.
Murray State received the other three first-place votes and 212 points in being picked third. The preseason poll was rounded out by
Eastern Kentucky (139),
Tennessee Tech (137),
Eastern Illinois (135),
Tennessee State (125),
UT Martin (114),
Morehead State (89),
Southeast Missouri (82),
Austin Peay (63) and
SIUE (40).
Belmont was tabbed the preseason favorite after going 15-1 in league play a season ago in winning its fourth OVC regular season championship in five years as a member of the League. During that span the Bruins are 66-14 in OVC action but are looking to win its first OVC Tournament crown since 2015. Head coach
Rick Byrd will have to find a replacement for two-time OVC Player of the Year Evan Bradds, who graduated as the program’s Division I scoring leader; Byrd does return nine players and three starters this season. Among the returning players is senior point guard
Austin Luke, who finished second nationally in assists (7.1/game) last year, and senior forward
Amanze Egekeze (11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds/game last year). That duo, both Preseason All-OVC selections, have combined to start 144 games during their Belmont careers. Byrd enters his 32nd season as the program’s head coach and is one of just five active Division I coaches to have to be with the same program for 25 or more years; his 754 career victories rank him fifth among active DI head coaches.
Jacksonville State was picked to finish sixth in the OVC East a year ago but finished the year with a 9-7 record, good enough for third place. The Gamecocks earned the No. 4 seed for the OVC Tournament and knocked off No. 5 Southeast Missouri, No. 1 Belmont and No. 2 UT Martin in winning the tournament crown for the first time. The Gamecocks made its first appearance in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, falling to Louisville in a close affair. Rising senior
Norbertas Giga made a splash on the national scene in that game, connecting on 5-of-5 3-pointers (after making only eight all season entering the contest) and scoring 30 points to go along with nine rebounds. For the year, Giga, a Preseason All-OVC selection, averaged 11.0 points and 8.1 rebounds/game and hit 50.9 percent from the field. He is joined on the Preseason All-OVC team by senior guard
Malcolm Drumwright, the MVP of last year’s OVC Tournament. Drumwright, who has started every game over the past two seasons, averaged a team-high 12.5 points/game last year to go along with 3.9 assists and 2.4 rebounds a contest in addition to knocking down 63 3-pointers. Overall, second-year head coach
Ray Harper, who has won 451 games during his career (including two Division II and two NAIA National Championships), has eight returning players from a year ago.
Murray State is looking to bounce back after a rare losing season last year (finishing 16-17), the first for the program since 1986-87. The Racers did win a pair of games in the OVC Tournament to advance to the semifinal round thanks in part to the performance of guard
Jonathan Stark. Stark, the Preseason OVC Player of the Year, ranked 13th nationally in scoring at 21.9 points/game, while connecting on 42.5 percent of his 3-point attempts (making 108 trifectas during the season). Stark scored 41 points in the first round of the OVC Tournament and added 37 points in the Racers quarterfinal victory. Stark is joined on the Preseason All-OVC team by senior forward
Terrell Miller, Jr. who averaged 16.0 points and 8.2 rebounds/game and recorded 12 double-doubles. As a team, MSU established a new program record for 3-pointers made in a season (289) a year ago. This season third-year head coach
Matt McMahon welcomes seven newcomers.
Eastern Kentucky has just missed out on the eight-team OVC Tournament field in each of
Dan McHale’s first two seasons season as head coach. This season’s team is primed for a run at the regular season title with nine returning letterwinners (including five of its top six scorers), including Preseason All-OVC picks
Nick Mayo and
Asante Gist. The versatile junior forward Mayo ranked third in the OVC in blocks (1.4/game), fifth in scoring (18.5 points/game), 12th in rebounding (6.5/game), field goal percentage (50.4%) and 3-point percentage (39.0%) and 15th in assists (2.8/game) a season ago. In his first year with the team, Gist was 10th in scoring (15.9 points/game), ninth in assists (3.8/game) and in the process broke the EKU freshman scoring record. Among the team’s newcomers is Butler transfer
Jackson Davis, who is eligible after sitting out last season.
Tennessee Tech returns seven players from last year’s team that was 8-8 in Conference play. Among the returning players is senior guard
Aleksa Jugovic who is a Preseason All-OVC selection. Jugovic has started every game of the past two seasons and a year ago averaged 15.2 points and 2.1 assists/game while connecting on 82 3-pointers (tied for third-most in the OVC). He is joined in the backcourt by fifth year player
Kajon Mack who averaged 11.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.3 blocks/game a year ago after transferring from Tulane. In the front court, head coach
Steve Payne returns senior forward
Mason Ramsey who averaged 9.5 points and 4.4 rebounds/game in 2016-17. Following the retirement of Austin Peay head coach Dave Loos, Payne is now the dean of OVC coaches, entering his seventh year as head of the program (after serving as an assistant coach with the program for nine seasons prior to that).
Jay Spoonhour begins year number six as head coach at Eastern Illinois. After making four-consecutive OVC Tournament appearances the Panthers missed out on the field a year ago with a 6-10 league mark. He returns four starters from last year’s team including senior guards
Terrell Lewis and
Montell Goodwin, senior wing
Ray Crossland and senior forward
Muusa Dama. Lewis, who has ranked in the Top 25 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio in each of his first three seasons, enters the year as the Panthers all-time assists leader (463) and needs only 68 helpers to move into the OVC career Top 10 list. Dama led the OVC in both rebounding (9.6/game) and blocked shots (61) a year ago.
Tennessee State got off to a 6-0 start last year, took NC State to overtime and gave Duke all it wanted in front of a national television audience in mid-December. But the Tigers compiled just an 8-8 OVC record and were the eighth seed for the OVC Tournament, falling to Southeast Missouri in the first round. A year after winning 20 games, the team finished with 17 overall victories a year ago, marking the ninth time since moving to Division I that the program had back-to-back winning seasons. This season fourth year head coach
Dana Ford welcomes back nine players, including a pair of starters in senior guard
Darreon Reddick and junior forward
Christian Mekowulu. Reddick averaged 9.0 points/game a season ago in 26 starts while Mekowulu averaged 4.6 points and 3.7 rebounds/contest.
Two years ago, UT Martin finished first place in the West Division with a 10-6 record and advanced to the OVC Tournament Championship game for the first time while winning 20 overall games. Prior to last season, former associate head coach
Anthony Stewart took over the head coaching duties and the program did not miss a step in once again going 10-6 in OVC play, advancing to the OVC title game for the second-straight year and finishing the season with 22 overall wins. Overall UTM reached the 20-win plateau for the third-straight season, a first in school history. This season Stewart has just four players returning from 2016-17. Among the returning players is Preseason All-OVC selection
Matthew Butler who averaged 13.7 points, 3.7 assists and 2.9 rebounds/game after transferring from Rhode Island.
A season ago
Preston Spradlin took over as interim coach for Morehead State nine games into the season. At the time the Eagles were 2-7, but he was able to turn the season around and guide MSU to a 12-9 record for the remainder of the season, including a 10-6 mark in OVC play. That performance earned Spradlin the full-time coaching position following the season. His first full-time season will feature a roster that does not include a single senior and has only one player who has made a Division I start. That player is junior forward
Lamontray Harris, who averaged 19 minutes/game last year while averaging 9.4 points and 5.2 rebounds/game. Also back is sophomore guard
Jordan Walker who came off the bench in all 30 games a season ago to average 7.0 points/game while hitting 49.4 percent from 3-point range.
Southeast Missouri begins its third season under head coach
Rick Ray and will do so with a nearly new roster. The Redhawks, who were 9-7 in OVC play last season (its first winning League record since 2011-12) returns just four players, including only one player (OVC Freshman of the Year
Denzel Mahoney) who saw major minutes. Mahoney, a Preseason All-OVC pick, started all 33 games during his rookie campaign and was second on the team with a 14.9 points/game average (a mark that went up to 16.6 points/game in OVC play). Due to a NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) historic penalty, Southeast Missouri is ineligible for the OVC and NCAA Tournaments this year.
For the first time since the 1989-90 season, someone other than Dave Loos (the winningest coach in OVC history who retired following last season) starts the year as the Austin Peay head coach. That new coach is
Matt Figger who comes to Clarksville after most recently being part of South Carolina’s unprecedented run to the Final Four. APSU has just four returning players, with the most experienced being junior forward
Chris Porter-Bunton, who started 25 of the team’s 30 games a year ago. Porter-Bunton averaged 6.3 points and 3.6 rebounds/game a year ago. The team welcomes six freshmen, along with eligible senior transfers
Averyl Ugba (All-SWAC selection at Grambling) and
Ed Stephens (1,000-point career scorer at South Carolina State).
Third-year SIUE head coach
Jon Harris has three starters back from last year’s team. Those starters include senior forwards
Jalen Henry (12.5 points, 5.6 rebounds/game) and
Keenan Simmons (6.7 points, 7.2 rebounds/game) and sophomore guard
Christian Ellis (7.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists/game).
The 2017-18 season kicks off with an exhibition contest on November 1 while the first regular season games will be played on Friday, November 10. The 2018 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament will be held February 28 - March 3 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.
2017-18 OVC Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll
1. Belmont (18 first-place votes) – 235 points
2. Jacksonville State (3) - 213
3. Murray State (3) - 212
4. Eastern Kentucky - 139
5. Tennessee Tech - 137
6. Eastern Illinois - 135
7. Tennessee State - 125
8. UT Martin - 114
9. Morehead State - 89
10. Southeast Missouri - 82
11. Austin Peay - 63
12. SIUE - 40
2017-18 All-OVC Preseason Men’s Basketball Team
The 2017-18 OVC Preseason Men’s Basketball Team is headlined by Murray State senior guard
Jonathan Stark who was named the OVC Preseason Player of the Year.
Stark, a first-team All-OVC selection last year, is the first Murray State player to be tabbed Preseason Player of the Year since 2014-15 (Cameron Payne).
Overall seven different schools were represented on the team with Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State and Murray State having two selections apiece and Southeast Missouri, Tennessee Tech and UT Martin having one pick apiece. The squad features six players who were either first or second-team selections last season. The team is comprised of eight seniors, one junior and two sophomores.
A season ago Stark led the OVC and ranked 13th nationally in scoring at 21.9 points/game. Stark connected on 42.5 percent of his 3-point attempts, making 108 trifectas during the season. Stark scored 41 points in the first round of the OVC Tournament and added 37 points in the Racers quarterfinal game.
The other returning All-OVC selections from a year ago include Eastern Kentucky junior
Nick Mayo (18.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists/game), Murray State senior forward
Terrell Miller (16.0 points, 8.2 rebounds/game), Belmont senior guard
Austin Luke (second nationally with 7.1 assists/game), Jacksonville State senior guard
Malcolm Drumwright (12.5 points, 3.9 assists/game) and Southeast Missouri sophomore guard
Denzel Mahoney (14.9 points, 4.2 rebounds/game).
The Preseason All-OVC Team is rounded out by Eastern Kentucky sophomore guard
Asante Gist (15.9 points, 3.8 assists/game), Jacksonville State senior forward
Norbertas Giga (11.0 points, 8.1 rebounds/game), Tennessee Tech senior guard
Aleksa Jugovic (15.2 points, 2.1 assists/game, 82 3-pointers), Belmont senior forward
Amanze Egekeze (11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds/game) and UT Martin senior guard
Matthew Butler (13.7 points, 82 3-pointers).
2017-18 Preseason All-OVC Men’s Basketball Team
Matthew Butler, UT Martin
Malcolm Drumwright, Jacksonville State
Amanze Egekeze, Belmont
Norbertas Giga, Jacksonville State
Asante Gist, Eastern Kentucky
Aleksa Jugovic, Tennessee Tech
Austin Luke, Belmont
Denzel Mahoney, Southeast Missouri
Nick Mayo, Eastern Kentucky
Terrell Miller, Murray State
Jonathan Stark, Murray State
Preseason OVC Player of the Year: Jonathan Stark, Murray State