Ohio Valley conference tournament preview

This is part 5 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Belmont 16-2
Murray St 16-2
Jacksonville St 15-3
Austin Peay 13-5
Morehead St 8-10
Eastern Illinois 7-11
UT Martin 6-12
SIUE 6-12
Tennessee St 6-12
Eastern Kentucky 6-12
SEMO 5-13
Tennessee Tech 4-14

Format:  March 6-9.  Neutral site host in Evansville.  A few quirky things though, that were created to protect the top seeds (and it's working!).  Only the top 8 are invited.  And the top 2 seeds get double byes.

The matchups:

1) Belmont vs. 4/5/8) Austin Peay/Morehead St/SIUE
2) Murray St vs. 3/6/7) Jacksonville St/Eastern Illinois/UT Martin

The stakes:
First, let's talk about the stupidity of the OVC deciding that Murray and Belmont should only play once this season.  Dumb.  Both teams really could've used that extra quality win chance.  Both teams have a fatal flaw in that they didn't have enough quality wins, and THE CONFERENCE LEFT A QUALITY WIN CHANCE FOR BOTH TEAMS ON THE TABLE BY ONLY HAVING THEM PLAY ONCE.  Dumbasses.

Anyways, Belmont is the at-large team of record for me.  They won at Murray St and swept Lipscomb (5 Q1/2 wins overall), and did pretty good against a reasonable non-con.  Won at UCLA, lost a dumb one at Green Bay, overall won a bunch and won on the road.  12 true road wins will matter.  Swept by Jax State, which may be the killer.  Losing 1 dicey game is fine, 2 is okay, 3 is where you start edging up against the border.  I think if push comes to shove, they're out as they don't have a truly high-end win, something they can point to as a legitimate big-time win.  But this isn't a definitive declaration.

On the other end, Murray St has 1 Q2 win, and 3 Q3 wins, and everything else in Q4.  And the Q2 is @Austin Peay.  There's just no way to make the case, despite the gaudy record.  I have to imagine they'll be let into the NIT, but I'm not even sure that's a lock, either.