Changes announced for OVC women's basketball scheduling format and tournament

The Ohio Valley Conference announced some significant changes for women's basketball on Friday.

The conference will no longer recognize the East and West divisions that were implemented for scheduling purposes when the OVC expanded to 12 teams in 2011-12.

The scheduling process will remain the same, but the standings will consist of one 1-12 ranking.

The Top 8 teams in the standings will make the conference tournament, which will be held March 4-7, 2015, at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, but the format of the tournament has also been adjusted.

The past four years the tournament has used a merit-based format, which allowed the top 4 seeds to receive byes -- the top 2 teams received double byes. The 2015 tournament will use a traditional format that will have the No. 1 vs. No. 8 and No. 2 vs. No. 7 play on March 4, 2015. The winners of those games will have an off day on March 5, 2015 and the No. 3 vs No. 6 and No. 4 vs. No. 5 will play.

The semifinals will be played on March 6, 2015 and the championship on March 7, 2015.

The OVC men's basketball teams will remain with the merit-based format for the tournament.

The regular-season schedule format for OVC women's basketball has also been changed.

The conference had switched to a schedule format prior to the 2011-12 season that had women's teams playing on Saturday's and Monday's.

"The change was made in order to give women's basketball teams its own exclusive night of games, help with the development of women's basketball and to grow its fan base," according to the OVC's news release.

This season the women's teams will play on Wednesday's and Saturday's.

"The recommendation came from the women's basketball coaches group who preferred to have Sunday as a true off day and believe that Wednesday will be more fan-friendly than Monday night games," according to the release.

The format for the men's basketball schedule will remain Thursday and Saturday.

The women's programs will be able to move games to Thursday nights under the OVC's change of schedule policy, but only if there is a balance between which programs will play during the primetime slot, according to the release.

"These changes have been made in an effort to both grow and promote women's basketball, which has a rich tradition in the OVC," OVC Commissioner Beth DeBauche said in the release. "We were mindful to listen to the recommendations of our coaches while trying to make the best possible experience for our student-athletes."