Ohio Valley Conference Basketball: Little Rock, SIUE lead latest power rankings

It is time to update the Ohio Valley Conference power rankings. League teams begin league play on December 19 and their nonconference records and achievements are mostly done. What kind of resume have the OVC teams built? 

We have crunched all the numbers and watched the teams play.

OVC teams are very hard to figure. League members are 45-61 overall (.425), mixed in that record are twenty wins over sub-Division 1 teams and 18 ‘buy game’ losses to ‘power conference’ teams. So, a mid-December evaluation is difficult. 

Tennessee Martin owns the league’s best win of the season, an opening night victory over Illinois State (178 at KenPom.com). Southern Illinois Edwardsville and Southern Indiana each defeated number 199 Indiana State as the next best wins. No other OVC team has defeated a team in kenpom’s top-200. 

Little Rock was the official preseason favorite to win the OVC regular season championship. The Trojans lost preseason ‘player of the year’ K.K. Robinson for the season before the campaign even began. 

In Robinson’s absence there is no clear favorite to claim the season-ending version of that title. The OVC’s top nine scorers come from nine different teams. It is the same scenario among the league’s top nine rebounders and the top eight assist men. 

Only four players can be found among the leaders of more than one of these statistical categories. Southern Illinois Edwardsville’s Ray’Sean Taylor leads in assists (5.5 apg) and is fourth in scoring (16.9 ppg). 

Southeast Missouri’s Teddy Washington Jr is sixth in scoring (16.3) and ninth in rebounds (6.1). Little Rock’s Mwani Wilkinson is seventh in scoring (16.2) and tied for fourth in rebounds (6.6). Stephen Olowoniyi is ninth in scoring (15.2) and the Southern Indiana forward is seventh at cleaning the glass (6.3). 

We believe the OVC is broken in to three different tiers. Tier three consists of teams with very uneven performances. The second tier is filled with teams that could move into the league’s upper echelon or tumble to the bottom. 

Finally, the top tier seems to be a cut above the rest.