Ohio Valley Conference announces divisional alignment for basketball

The Ohio Valley Conference announced its plan for divisional play for men's and women's basketball Thursday, beginning with the 2012-13 academic year.

The recent addition of Belmont will give the OVC 12 members, the largest the conference has been since it was formed in 1948.

Southeast Missouri State will be in the West Division along with Austin Peay, Eastern Illinois, Murray State, SIU Edwardsville and Tennessee-Martin.

The East Division will include Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech.

Some of the factors in determining the divisions included geography and balance while also being mindful of matchups and rivalries.

Men's and women's conference basketball schedules for the 2012-13 season will be released in the coming weeks.

The final piece of divisional play will be to determine tournament seeding and bracketing. A decision should come soon.

The sports of softball and volleyball will use schedules based on a divisional format but have yet to determine if those sports formally will recognize divisions.

Football, baseball, soccer and tennis will not use divisional play because those sports currently have less than 12 participating teams.