Ohio Valley Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2022-23 season

Traditional Ohio Valley Conference Basketball heavyweights are gone and every team in the 75-year-old league believes it has a chance to move up and grab the crown. Traditional powers Murray State and Belmont University have moved the Missouri Valley and Austin Peay left for the Atlantic Sun.

Those three teams combined to win 26 of the league’s postseason tournaments and eight of the last eleven. Either Belmont or Murray State has won the last five regular season titles while they tied for the top spot in two of those campaigns. During the five previous seasons where divisional play was in place, the two titans were in separate divisions. They won or tied for the divisional title each of those years.

Under the leadership of Commissioner Beth DeBauche the conference added Little Rock, Lindenwood University, and Southern Indiana. Lindenwood and USI are reclassifying from Division 2 to join the OVC.

With those traditional powers out of the way, the road to the OVC penthouse is wide open. While Morehead State is the only team to win an OVC tournament title in the last five years (2020-21), the Eagles were hit hard by the transfer portal and head coach Preston Spradlin had to rebuild his roster.

As the league celebrates its seventy-fifth season, there is hope and optimism in all ten programs. Coaching staffs utilized the portal with great skill and virtually every team has a reasonable claim that they are better than last season.

Only three players return from the league’s 15-member first and second-team all-conference squad. Preseason player of the year, UT Martin’s K.J. Simon is the only first-teamer back this year. Second-team members Jr Clay and Phillip Russell return, but Clay is playing for Tennessee State after four seasons with Tennessee Tech. Clay has been an OVC  second-teamer, all four of his collegiate seasons.