EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Men’s and Women’s Basketball has announced its Ohio Valley Conference schedule ahead of the 2024-25 season.
The OVC, which features an 11-team field, switched to a true round-robin slate of 20 games after its 18-game slate last season, allowing each conference team to play each other twice in a home-and-home series. The OVC has also had a 20-game league schedule from 2005-06 through 2007-08 and in 2020-21.
With the increased number of games, the schedule will begin before Christmas on December 17 and December 21. Southern Indiana will tip off on December 21 at home against Tennessee State University. The OVC regular season concludes on March 1.
The move to the 20-game slate allows for each conference team to play each other twice in a home-and-home series. The 2024-25 Ohio Valley Conference features the same cast consisting of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Tennessee at Martin, Morehead State University, Western Illinois University, Tennessee State University, Tennessee Tech University, Eastern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Southeast Missouri State University, Lindenwood University, and USI.
The Screaming Eagles’ OVC slate begins with three consecutive home games against Tennessee State (December 19), UT Martin (December 21), and Morehead State (December 31). The rest of the OVC action at Screaming Eagles Arena features Lindenwood (January 16), Western Illinois (January 18), Tennessee Tech (February 1), Little Rock (February 6), SEMO (February 8), Eastern Illinois (February 20), and SIUE (February 22).
The 10-game OVC road slate is heavy in January with stops at Tennessee Tech (January 2), SEMO (January 9), Little Rock (January 11), SIUE (January 23), Eastern Illinois (January 25), and Morehead State (January 28). USI will then hit the road in February at Western Illinois (February 13), Lindenwood (February 15), UT Martin (February 27), and Tennessee State (March 1).
The 2025 OVC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament is slated for March 5-8 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. It marks the eighth year in a row that the event will be held at the venue.
The USI Men’s Basketball squad finished the 2023-24 season at 8-24 overall along with a 5-13 conference mark. The Eagles snuck into the OVC tournament as an eight-seed before losing in the first round to Tennessee State.
The USI Women’s Basketball squad enjoyed a remarkable 2023-24 season capturing the first-ever D-I team conference championships for USI Athletics by winning both the regular season title after going 17-1 and the tournament title in dominating fashion. USI continued to break barriers with USI’s first D-I national tournament win, beating the University of Illinois Chicago in the first round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT).
Each OVC school is eligible to compete and win the OVC Tournament Championship, including USI and Lindenwood, who are in their third year of the NCAA reclassification. Should a transitioning school win an OVC Tournament Championship, the automatic qualifier (AQ) shall be awarded to the tournament runner-up. Should the tournament runner-up also be a transitioning school, the AQ representative shall be the highest seed going into the tournament.
All OVC games and home non-conference contests can be seen on ESPN networks, with the majority of games broadcast on ESPN+. Additional linear exposures on ESPNU and ESPN2 will be announced at a later date.
The USI Men’s and Women’s basketball non-conference games will be announced once the schedules are complete.
