The Ohio Valley Conference officially released the men’s and women’s basketball conference schedules for the 2020-2021 season.
The schedule consists of 20 composite games both teams will play beginning on Dec. 30. However, the OVC has made it a point to emphasize the dates are subject to change at any time if the coronavirus intervenes.
In the past, each team played only 18 games during the conference season. In order to compensate for the delayed start date, and allow teams to navigate around their non-conference schedules, the OVC raised that number to 20 games.
The 2020-2021 men’s and women’s basketball is scheduled as follows:
* “Flex” Games (Date TBD) – Belmont at Tennessee State
* Dec. 30 – Murray State at Belmont
* Jan. 2 – Belmont at UT Martin
* Jan. 7 – Southeast Missouri at Belmont
* Jan. 9 – UT Martin at Belmont
* Jan. 14 – Belmont at Tennessee Tech
* Jan. 16 – Belmont at Jacksonville State
* Jan. 21 – Eastern Illinois at Belmont
* Jan. 23 – SIUE at Belmont
* Jan. 28 – Belmont at Austin Peay
* Jan. 30 – Belmont at Murray State
* Feb. 4 – Belmont at Eastern Illinois
* Feb. 6 – Belmont at SIUE
* Feb. 11 – Eastern Kentucky at Belmont
* Feb. 13 – Morehead State at Belmont
* Feb. 18 – Jacksonville State at Belmont
* Feb. 20 – Tennessee Tech at Belmont
* Feb. 25 – Belmont at Eastern Kentucky
* Feb. 27 – Belmont at Morehead State
* March 3 – Saturday, March 6 – OVC Tournament (Ford Center – Evansville, Ind.)
Both teams have a challenging conference season ahead of them, as each has faced adversity since the end of the 2019-2020 season.
The women’s team has lost its most valuable player in Ellie Harmeyer. However, it had a strong off-season regarding recruitment, and plans to rebuild its reputation after losing to Southeast Missouri in the OVC Semifinals.
Additionally, the women’s team still has a foundation in players like Conley Chin, Jamilyn Kinney and Madison Treece. Each of these players displayed tremendous talent and leadership through adversity they dealt with last season.
Despite the success of the men’s team in the 2020-2021 season, the defending OVC champions are ranked third behind Austin Peay and Murray State in the pre-season poll released by ESPN. However, team leaders Nick Muszynski and Grayson Murphy made it on ESPN’s preseason All-OVC team ahead of the season.
The reigning OVC Tournament MVP in Muszynski and Defensive Player of the Year in Murphy will surely have something to say about that once competition begins.
The non-conference schedule for both teams have not been released yet, but more information will be available following each team’s designated media day on Nov. 10.
—
This article written by Julieann Challacombe.