The Ohio Valley Conference announced Monday that the annual men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will take place in a different arena beginning next season.

For 16 of the past 17 years, the tournaments have been hosted in Nashville, Tenn., most recently at the Sommet Center where the NHL’s Nashville Predators play.

Next year, the tournament will be played in the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville.

While the venue will be different, the tournament’s format will be altered too.

This season the first round of games in the OVC Tournament are played at campus sites, including Lantz Arena, where Eastern will play its first tournament game as the No. 1 seed in this season’s tournament.

Next season, the entire tournament will take place in Nashville, which is slated to begin March 2.

Also, the top two seeds in the tournament will get byes into the semifinals, while the third and fourth seeds will get byes into the quarterfinals.

The slate of first round games will be No. 5 against No. 8, and No. 6 against No. 7 as ranked at the end of the regular season.

This season, the first round of games will be played on Tuesday, then teams will get a break to practice and travel to Nashville, where they will resume play on Friday.

It will be different next season as all of the tournaments’ games will be on consecutive days.

Team wins, shoots poorly

Eastern shot 38.5 percent from the field on Saturday against Murray State in Murray, Ky. but managed to pull out a five-point win.

Coupled with the low field goal percentage, the Panthers shot 18.8 percent from beyond the arc on 3-of-16 shooting.

The Racers shot better than the Panthers in both categories, but were dominated in free throws made and attempted.

For the game, the Panthers were 23-of-30 from the free throw line, led by senior forward Maggie Kloak who was 12-of-14 from the stripe.

Murray State only attempted nine free throws, making six.

Bench steps up

Eastern outscored Murray State 26-23 in bench points Saturday, as all four of its substitutes connected on at least one basket.

Six Racers saw action off the bench, but only four scored for 23 points. Sophomore guard Mallory Schwab led Murray State with nine points.

Three out of the four bench players for Eastern played 15-plus minutes, including sophomore guard Madeline Kish, freshman guard Kelsey Wyss and freshman forward Sydney Mitchell.

Freshman forward Mariah King played seven minutes off the bench, connecting on 1-of-3 shots for two points.

Also, the Panthers’ bench was more efficient than the five players who started the game.

Eastern’s starters converted on just 16-of-48, for 33 percent from the field; while the bench connected on 9-of-17, for 52 percent.

The bench will remain a key part of Eastern’s game plan, as it will finish up its regular season with two home games, beginning Thursday.

The Panthers will play Austin Peay Thursday in Lantz Arena. The game is slated to begin at 5:30 p.m.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.