If one thing has been on the lips of women’s basketball coaches in the Ohio Valley Conference this week, it has been “there’s no place like home.”

The teams with road games this week are wishing they were at home, and the teams with home games are glad to be where they’re at.

Facing a three-game road trip, taking his team through first place Austin Peay, Murray State assistant coach Rob Cross had a simple plan to handle the trek.

“Prayer, lots of prayer with those three teams (Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech and Austin Peay)” Cross said. “They’ve won lots of games; we’ve only won one.”

Only two teams in the OVC (Murray State and Tennessee State) have home records below .500, while all but three teams (first place Austin Peay, Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State) have losing records on the road.

One team happy to be home will be Tennessee State. The Tigers (2-16, 0-8) are looking for their first OVC win and have good odds of getting that first win Thursday when they host Southeast Missouri (5-13, 1-6). The battle between this year’s OVC bottom dwellers will match the conference’s second stingiest defense (Murray State with 64.2 points allowed per game) against a Tiger team ranking in the bottom third of eight of 10 statistical categories.

Tennessee State head coach Valencia Jordan addressed concerns about her team’s inconsistency this season.

“(Inconsistency) has been a problem we have had all season,” Jordan said. “It’s nothing that we’re all in a panic about it, and we’re excited about getting to play two games at home.”

Eastern might be the happiest team to play at home. Not only have they won four out of their last five OVC games held in Lantz Arena, but Eastern doesn’t have to worry about playing the top two teams in the conference (first place Austin Peay and second place Southeast Missouri), who are both at home this weekend.

Eastern also likes being at home because of the amount of games they have played recently.

“It helps being at home,” Eastern head coach Linda Wunder said. “We played four games in seven days, so we were a little fatigued ourself coming down the stretch, we were at home; so at least we could be fatigued at home.”

The Panthers will have a chance to continue moving up the conference standings Saturday when they host Morehead State (11-9, 4-5). The Eagles are coming off an 83-76 loss to Austin Peay Monday.

The last time the two teams met, the Panthers lost to the Eagles 75-70 at Morehead Jan. 13.

“This road trip is one we don’t look forward to,” Morehead head coach Laura Litter said. “Eastern Illinois is a lot like we were three to four years ago. They have the talent it takes to do well.”

“They played a close game with us at our place, and we are going to come in expecting a good game.”

Another important game this weekend in the OVC will be Eastern Kentucky at SEMO. Only half a game separates the No. 2 and No. 3 teams in the conference.

“The Eastern Kentucky game is a big game for us,” SEMO head coach B.J. Smith said. “They’ve established themselves in the past 10 years as a team to contend with in the OVC. They made us look really bad at their place, they really dominated us, so hopefully we can have a better showing.”