• 2021 OVC Basketball Championships Website | Kentucky Wild Website
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The Ohio Valley Conference announced an agreement with Kentucky Wild to be the presenting sponsor of the 2021 OVC Men’s & Women’s Basketball Championships. The event will be named the “OVC Basketball Championships Presented By Kentucky Wild.”
This year’s event is scheduled for March 3-6 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana and will feature eight men’s and eight women’s teams competing for a spot in the NCAA Basketball Tournaments. The 2021 event marks the fourth-straight year the event has been held in Evansville.
The agreement was brokered by OVC Sports Properties, a division of Learfield IMG College the multi-media rights holder of the OVC.
“It is a privilege for The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), through the ‘Kentucky Wild Program,’ to be the presenting sponsor of the Ohio Valley Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships,” stated Kentucky Wild spokesperson Laura Burford. “We represent over 900,000 passionate outdoor enthusiasts, many of whom are just as passionate about their college basketball.”
The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife (KDFWR), a long-time corporate partner of the OVC, helps manage the 89,431 miles of streams and 40,409 acres of surface water in Kentucky. Twenty-nine percent (29%) of employees (133 in total) at the KDFWR are alumni of OVC institutions.
This year’s event will see a change to the women’s bracket. After a recommendation from the women’s basketball coaches and approval by the Council of OVC Directors of Athletics and OVC Board of Presidents, the bracket will switch from a traditional (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.) format to a merit-based format that gives the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds double byes, the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds single byes and matches up No. 5/8 and No. 6/7 in the first round. The women’s basketball teams previously used this format from 2011-14 and the OVC men’s basketball teams have been using the format since 2011.
More specific information on this year’s tournament will be announced at a later date.
ABOUT KENTUCKY WILD:
The mission of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources is to conserve, protect and enhance Kentucky’s fish and wildlife resources and provide outstanding opportunities for fishing, hunting, trapping, boating, and shooting sports, wildlife viewing and related activities. KDFWR is funded primarily by Kentucky Wild memberships, the sale of fishing and hunting licenses, which help produces $5.9 billion annually in economic impact in the state of Kentucky, using no state General Fund tax dollars. KDFWR’s spending and staffing directly produce programs and resources that benefit all of Kentucky’s citizens and our state’s economy at all levels. For more visit:
https://app.fw.ky.gov/kywild/.
ABOUT THE OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE:
The Ohio Valley Conference is in its seventh decade of competition, making it the eighth-oldest Division I athletic conference. The OVC is comprised of 12 schools that represent five states. Member institutions include Austin Peay State University, Belmont University, Eastern Illinois University, Eastern Kentucky University, Jacksonville State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Southeast Missouri State University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University and the University of Tennessee at Martin. For more visit
www.OVCSports.com.