OVC NOTEBOOK: East-leading Bruins out in front as men's basketball action moves along

As men's basketball teams within the Ohio Valley Conference have reached or are nearing the midpoint of OVC regular-season action, most coaches have come to the general consensus that the East Division is superior, Belmont is the team to beat and there's still plenty of time left to see what happens.

Five of the OVC East Division teams sit at or above .500 in conference play -- Belmont, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, Morehead State and Jacksonville State -- with just Eastern Kentucky below at 3-4. The West Division, in which Southeast Missouri State resides, has two teams at or one game above .500 in Murray State and Eastern Illinois.

Teams began division play last week and will continue for the next 4 1/2 weeks in order to determine the eight teams that will compete in the OVC tournament March 2-5 in Nashville.

Defending tournament champion Belmont remains the only unbeaten in conference at 7-0 after defeating Tennessee State 103-95 on Sunday.

"You know, you never really know what to expect in the OVC and I'm sure I'm like a lot of coaches, I'm not glued to my computer figuring out who's recruiting who or who's signed who," TSU coach Dana Ford said during the OVC's media teleconference on Monday. "You can look at your preseason rankings sometimes, but they never really tell the story because you just don't know who's out there, but I will tell you this: I think that the league is really good this year and if you take away Belmont I think everybody else is a toss-up in terms of, 'who can win the game' or 'who's going to win the game.'

"Obviously Belmont's going to be a favorite probably in every game that they play, and rightfully so. They do a great job, they've got a lot of guys back, they've got a great balance on the offensive end. But everybody else it's really a toss-up. SIUE, it took the last shot for us to beat them. Same with Murray State and same on the road against Eastern Illinois. I mean, it came down to the last minute. We expect every game to be close, and I think we're all chasing Belmont right now."

TSU, in its second year under Ford, has made the biggest jump from last season to this year. The Tigers are second in the East with a 5-1 conference record after winning just five games total a year ago.

Tennessee Tech is 6-2 in the OVC after posting a 4-12 league record last season.

"Last year the West was a little better than the East," Belmont coach Rick Byrd said. "This year it seems to be the other way around. I think that's the improvement of several programs, considerable improvement. Â… Our whole side has just gotten better. I heard Dana kind of say it's everybody chasing Belmont, but I really don't feel that way at all. We haven't played each other in the East. We don't know who the better teams are until this all shakes out."

Morehead State (4-3), Jacksonville State (4-4) and Eastern Kentucky (3-4) round out the East standings.

EKU is one of four teams in the league with a new head coach. The other three -- Southeast's Rick Ray, Murray State's Matt McMahon and SIU Edwardsville's Jon Harris -- will all battle it out in the West.

"Very, very talented from top to bottom," McMahon said of the league. "Not much separation, especially from the teams I've seen. Very guard-dominated play and players make plays down the stretch and that's what it comes down to. Really good talent. Really, really fun league, good coaching. A lot of new coaches in the league trying to get their brand in there. Really exciting times to be a part of the OVC."

Defending regular-season champion Murray State sits atop the East with its 4-3 conference record. The Racers are 10-10 overall and the only team in their division with a .500 record.

Eastern Illinois sits in second at 4-4 followed by UT Martin (2-4) and Austin Peay (2-5).

Southeast is 1-6 in conference after defeating UTM 68-60 in overtime on Sunday for its first OVC win of the season, and SIUE is 1-7 with a 67-65 win over EKU on Jan. 16. Five of the Cougars' conference losses have been decided by eight points or fewer.

"I think it's going to be a lot of what we've seen to this point," Harris said. "What we've got to do is find ways to execute better down the stretch in games. I mean, we've been right there in every game outside of the Tennessee Tech game and Murray coming down to the wire we weren't necessarily there, but outside of that we've been there."

The Redhawks (4-16) and Cougars (4-16) face off in Edwardsville, Illinois, on Thursday night. Southeast brings a two-game winning streak to the Vadalabene Center.

Ray said on the teleconference that his players are starting to understand what needs to be done to have success.

"We have some older guys on our team, but we don't have any experienced guys," Ray said. "If you look at our roster, only really Antonius [Cleveland] and Isiah Jones are the only guys that have had major minutes of playing Division I college basketball, so we may have a junior on our team, but he's a junior that's getting minutes for the first time in his college career or he's a junior college transfer.

"Then our whole entire bench is made up of true freshmen that have never played at this level, so getting those guys acclimated to college basketball and what it takes to succeed at this level has really been the most trying factor of that. But once again, I give our guys credit for not just giving in to that and continuing to try to develop and get better."

There are 53 OVC games remaining to figure out which eight teams will make it to the conference tournament, with the regular season concluding with a game between Belmont and Tennessee State on Feb. 28.

"There's still a lot of conference left, but the league is very, very competitive with not only the new coaches but also the talent that's in our league," Morehead State coach Sean Woods said. "The East side there's just no easy out whatsoever. Belmont is still at the top, but ... everybody else is a toss-up.

"It's a credit to the OVC, a credit to the coaches in our league, and it's going to be very interesting coming down the stretch of how this thing pans out."