More or less, the Panthers, and more specifically Henry Domercant, got screwed.

Morehead State junior Ricky Minard was ushered in as the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year.

Sports information directors and coaches around the league should be smacking their foreheads and yelling, “D’oh.” But instead they are celebrating. The South won this war — Yeeeeeeeehaw!

Hey Ricky, can you play basketball good?

No, but I use-da-could.

Once again the southern bias of the league rises. While Minard shows plenty of top-notch tools on any given night, the junior guard has another year left to win the honor.

How does the league’s all-time leading scorer not win the award? How does Domercant, who won league player of the year in the last two seasons, suddenly not have what it takes in his senior year?

Domercant’s 27.9 points a contest (No. 2 in the nation, not behind Minard) aren’t enough?

The league’s press release stating Minard’s accomplishment showed weakness. “Minard ranks among the OVC’s top 15 players in 11 statistical categories,” the release boasts.

Domercant ranks in the top 10 of seven statistical categories — so let’s split hairs because that seems what much of this vote was about.

The NBA will draft Domercant — not Minard.

Domercant didn’t receive much help from his teammates and routinely outscored them.

Minard had plenty of help. Teammate Chez Marks averages 17.5 points per game. Outside of J.R. Reynolds’ underachieving 12.3 points per contest, no Panther averaged double digits.

Minard was part of a talented group of athletes who pushed Morehead State to its first share of the league title since 1984.

Domercant saved this year’s group of also-played from the OVC cellar.

Clearly sports information directors and coaches didn’t take any of this into consideration. This year’s voting shows more evidence of a southern bias that permeates through all league sports.

The men’s baseball team’s underrated rank in preseason polls each year falls into the routine. Tennessee-Martin’s volleyball team typically receives more respect than it deserves while SEMO and Eastern play like perennial powerhouses.

Domercant-gate builds the latest chapter of a saga waged since Eastern’s addition to the league in 1996.

The league shows no justification for such a bias. Eastern won the conference’s overall category last year and routinely finishes in at least the top three.

u Redshirt freshman guard Ashley Kearney earns the bonehead of the week award. Kearney, typically a smart, level-headed player must’ve had a lapse Tuesday at Southeast Missouri for the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

With less than 10 seconds left and the Panthers down by three points, Kearney drove to the hoop for a layup which rolled out as the buzzer sounded.

Panther head coach Linda Wunder could only shake her head and had this to say about the game’s final play: “I have no idea what Ashley was doing because I called a play to set up a three.”

While Kearney’s catastrophe in Cape Girardeau, Mo., proved fatal, the bigger blunder was a 13-point Panther lead that melted in the game’s final 13 minutes.

u Panther freshman Megan Sparks can’t explain why her team continually squandered leads this season.

“We just get down on ourselves,” Sparks said. “We are going along really good and then something happens and then we just think, ‘Oh, (crap),’ and we make more mistakes.”

So the Panthers played as a team of pessimists. To them Murphy’s Law was the Golden Rule.

It’s a type of attitude that typically isn’t shared by Division I athletes. Division I basketball players are supposed to be some of the cream of the nation, they’re the types of people who see the glass half full and usually their talent overflows.

The pessimistic attitude had to come from a leader, likely a coach. More than likely Wunder is the leader who pushes the pessimism envelope.

u Linda Wunder, your plane out is boarding.