What the OVC’s tune-up games can actually tell us
By OVC Me In The Gym Staff | November 6, 2026
I asked the OVC to take care of business. The OVC took care of business. Six games, six wins, and four teams scored enough points to make the scoreboard operator consider asking for overtime pay.
That is good. It also requires a little context before we start booking hotel rooms in March.
These were all non-Division I opponents. The size, depth and athleticism advantages were substantial. Winning by 70 is better than spending the final media timeout negotiating with your blood pressure, but the margin alone does not tell us how good anybody is.
There is still basketball worth studying here. Who initiates the offense? Who gets the next pass? Who keeps moving when he does not have the ball? Which reserves make the offense easier for everybody else?
The results give us clues about those questions. They do not establish an entire playbook. Without reviewing full game film, I am not going to label a team’s offense based on a handful of assisted baskets.
The business that got handled
| Date | Result |
|---|---|
| November 4 | SIUE 85, Concordia Chicago 61 |
| November 4 | Southeast Missouri 90, Webster 65 |
| November 4 | Southern Indiana 112, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods 42 |
| November 5 | Morehead State 114, Virginia-Lynchburg 60 |
| November 5 | Lindenwood 120, Central Bible 46 |
| November 5 | Tennessee State 127, East-West 61 |
SIUE: The second half was encouraging. The first half still happened.
Illinois beat: Fancy Dan Oakley
SIUE led Concordia Chicago 35–34 at halftime. Gianni Cobb needed a driving basket at the buzzer to give the home team that one-point cushion. Nobody was hanging a banner at the concession stand just yet.
Then Jordan Pickett scored 17 of his 19 points after halftime, and SIUE pulled away. The Cougars made seven of 12 second-half threes and finished with 21 assists.
The useful offensive clue is the distribution of responsibility. Pickett supplied the scoring, Cobb had three assists, Dehrio McCaskill had four, and reserve Jayden Riley led the team with five. Cobb assisted three Pickett baskets. That is an early connection worth tracking as the opposition improves.
David Wilson and Brennan Miller each scored 12, combining to make 11 of 16 shots. Miller also had seven rebounds and four blocks. Those are productive interior options, although a smaller opponent makes finishing and rim protection much easier.
Riley is my quieter name here. Five assists in limited bench minutes give us something to watch beyond who led the scoring. Can he organize possessions against stronger pressure, too?
What I want to see next: The ball continuing to find Pickett without every possession depending on him creating his own shot. Also, a first half that does not require a second-half explanation.
SEMO: Bell did a little of everything, and the offense had more than one distributor.
Missouri beat: Miles “Bus” Gentry
Webster stayed within five at halftime before Southeast Missouri won 90–65. The Redhawks had to work through an uneven opening half rather than simply overwhelm somebody from the opening possession.
Marqueas Bell finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Fontaine Williams Jr. added seven assists, and SEMO assisted 22 of its 34 made field goals. Having Bell contribute as a passer as well as a scorer gives Brad Korn another potential source of offense when a possession starts to stall.
Williams assisted two Bell baskets and two Darrion Sutton baskets. Landren Blocker also finished an alley-oop from Williams during the early second-half separation. That is an encouraging spread of recipients rather than one scorer absorbing everything.
Clayton Jewell deserves a mention beyond his eight points: 10 rebounds, two assists and three blocks. Drew Cooper supplied eight points and five rebounds without a turnover. Those are useful supporting contributions on a night when the headline naturally belongs to Bell.
There is unfinished business. SEMO made just 16 of 30 free throws. You can survive that against Webster. You should not build a November travel plan around surviving it elsewhere.
What I want to see next: Williams and Bell continuing to create for teammates against Division I length, with somebody locating the missing free throws before departure.
Southern Indiana: The bench earned attention. It has not settled the rotation.
Indiana/Kentucky beat: Hal Mercer
Southern Indiana’s 112–42 victory gave Stan Gouard his 300th career coaching win. The result was decisive; the allocation of opportunities was more interesting than the margin.
USI’s reserves scored 88 points. That deserves attention, but it needs the accompanying minutes: the starters played roughly seven to 11 minutes apiece. This was an opportunity to examine depth, not proof that the opening five needs replacing.
LA Hayes scored 21 on eight-of-11 shooting. Maksym Hryshchuk added 14 points and seven rebounds, including six offensive boards. Alem Fejzic made four threes. Their different contributions give USI several options to evaluate as the rotation tightens.
The clearest team-level offensive positive was 21 assists against four turnovers. Yesan Warren supplied four assists without a turnover. Hryshchuk added two assists without one, too. Hayes assisted two Hryshchuk baskets, an early connection worth revisiting.
Yuto Yamanouchi-Williams scored seven but collected 13 rebounds and blocked three shots. A supporting player’s value does not disappear because someone else scores 20.
What I want to see next: Which of these reserves earns a meaningful stint while a Division I game is still competitive. Producing with a large lead opens the conversation. Producing when the next possession matters moves it forward.
Morehead State: Shaw’s shooting got the attention. Wright helped supply it.
Indiana/Kentucky beat: Hal Mercer
Kyrell Shaw scored 28 points off the bench, making six of nine threes, in Morehead State’s 114–60 win. Clayton Parker added 24 on eight-of-10 shooting and made all six free throws.
The Eagles attempted 31 threes and assisted 30 of 44 made field goals. Those totals suggest a willingness to share the ball and use perimeter opportunities. They do not tell us which actions generated every shot, or how open those attempts will be against stronger defenders.
Jarvis Wright is the player I would pull out of the scoring summary. He finished with seven points, six rebounds and eight assists against two turnovers. Four of his assists went to Shaw. Justin Payne assisted three more Shaw baskets despite scoring just two points himself.
That gives us something more useful than simply saying Shaw got hot. Morehead had multiple players delivering the ball to him. The next question is whether those connections remain available when opponents can deny catches and close space faster.
Dalman Alexander and Tayvion Tangiora each had a double-double. Chase Dawson added 15 points and five assists with one turnover. There were several ways to contribute without competing with Shaw for the scoring headline.
What I want to see next: Wright’s passing translating against better pressure, and Parker continuing to finish efficiently when the defense can match his physicality.
Lindenwood: Archie scored five. Read the rest of the line.
Missouri beat: Miles “Bus” Gentry
Lindenwood beat Central Bible 120–46 and made 16 of 27 threes. Enjoy the makes. Please do not enter 59.3 percent into your season-long spreadsheet as an expectation.
Shamiere Green scored 20, Derek Rollins had 19, and Kellen Robinson scored 16 in his collegiate debut. The Lions finished with 33 assists, which is the part of this offensive performance I want to keep watching.
Xavier Spencer and Dom Clay had five assists apiece. Malek Archie led the team with six against one turnover, even though he scored only five points. Coming off his scoring performance at TCU, Archie showed another way to influence the offense.
Spencer assisted three Green baskets. Archie assisted two Makhan Diouf baskets, while Marko Lukanoski also supplied two assists to Diouf. Those are preliminary examples of players finding one another, not evidence that Lindenwood has already discovered its best five-man group.
Clay’s five assists came without a turnover. Rollins made seven of eight shots, including all three of his threes. There was efficiency throughout the box score, but the passing roles may prove more informative than the shooting percentage.
What I want to see next: Archie and Clay maintaining those decisions when the passing windows shrink. An offense becomes much easier to trust when its secondary creators can keep it moving.
Tennessee State: The paint was available. The Tigers kept returning to it.
Tennessee beat: Deacon Miller
Tennessee State scored 82 points in the paint and collected 26 offensive rebounds in a 127–61 win over East-West. Aaron Bradshaw alone grabbed 10 offensive boards, finishing with 13 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks.
The size advantage was enormous. Still, the distribution of scoring tells us where much of the damage occurred. Jayden Jones scored 17 on eight-of-10 shooting, and Ajayi Simmons supplied 14 points and nine rebounds while making all four field-goal attempts and all five free throws.
The passing deserves attention, too. Arterio Morris had five assists against one turnover. Maddux Bodenhamer added five assists without a turnover, including three assists to Kavien Jones. Christian Alston contributed four assists.
Bodenhamer is a useful name to remember when the rotation becomes more competitive. Ten points are welcome. Helping teammates score while protecting the ball is another route to earning minutes.
There is also a reason to slow down before declaring the offense fixed: TSU attempted 34 threes and made nine. The overwhelming paint production existed alongside perimeter shooting that still has room to improve.
What I want to see next: Whether TSU can create efficient interior opportunities without relying on being able to retrieve so many misses. The second shot will not always be waiting for them.
The passing connections to keep watching
These early passing connections stood out across the November 4–5 games. The totals count assisted baskets; they are starting points for tracking chemistry as the competition improves, rather than a ranking of the league’s most efficient duos. Note that the three teams that were off are not included in this breakout. I will show WIU, EIU and UT Martin love in later post:
| Team | Connection | Assisted baskets |
|---|---|---|
| SIUE | Gianni Cobb → Jordan Pickett | 3 |
| SEMO | Fontaine Williams Jr. → Marqueas Bell | 2 |
| Southern Indiana | LA Hayes → Maksym Hryshchuk | 2 |
| Morehead State | Jarvis Wright → Kyrell Shaw | 4 |
| Lindenwood | Xavier Spencer → Shamiere Green | 3 |
| Tennessee State | Maddux Bodenhamer → Kavien Jones | 3 |
Calling any pairing the most efficient would require dependable shared-possession data, consistent substitution logs and considerably more basketball. An assist count cannot measure everything two players do together, and these games offer a particularly forgiving setting.