The 2026 Ohio Valley Conference Men's Basketball Tournament was the final event of the 2025–26 NCAA Division I men's basketball season in the Ohio Valley Conference. The tournament was held March 4–7, 2026, at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. The tournament winner, Tennessee State received the conference's automatic bid to the 2026 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
Seeds Only the top eight teams in the conference qualified for the tournament. Teams were seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records.
SeedSchoolConferenceRecordTiebreaker1Tennessee State15–52–0 vs. UT Martin 2Morehead State15–51–1 vs. UT Martin3Southeast Missouri State14–64UT Martin13–75SIU Edwardsville12–86Lindenwood11–97Little Rock9–118Eastern Illinois8–122–0 vs. Tennessee Tech DNQTennessee Tech8–120–2 vs. Eastern IllinoisDNQSouthern Indiana4–16DNQWestern Illinois1–19
Schedule GameTimeMatchupScoreAttendanceTelevision First Round – Wednesday, March 416:00 p.m.No. 5 SIU Edwardsville vs. No. 8 Eastern Illinois71–77 929 ESPN+28:30 p.m.No. 6 Lindenwood vs. No. 7 Little Rock72–62 Quarterfinals – Thursday, March 536:00 p.m.No. 4 UT Martin vs. No. 8 Eastern Illinois66–63 1,101 ESPN+48:30 p.m.No. 3 Southeast Missouri State vs. No. 6 Lindenwood68–66 Semifinals – Friday, March 657:00 p.m.No. 1 Tennessee State vs. No. 4 UT Martin68–55 1,487 ESPNU69:30 p.m.No. 2 Morehead State vs. No. 3 Southeast Missouri State66–61 Final – Saturday, March 778:00 p.m.No. 1 Tennessee State vs. No. 2 Morehead State93–671,545ESPN2All game times in Central Time Zone; ranking denotes tournament seed.
Bracket Source:
Game summaries First Round
Quarterfinal Round
Semifinal Round
Final Round
Awards and honors All-Tournament Team Player Team Travis Harper II Tennessee State Dante Harris Tennessee State George Marshall Morehead State Aaron Nkrumah Tennessee State Braxton Stacker Southeast Missouri State MVP denotes Most Valuable Player
References