Six teams and five games remain before the Ohio Valley Conference has its true champion.

Samford, like last year, came away with the regular season bragging rights beating Eastern in the conference standings by one point once again this year.

But last year that fact did not phase the Panthers as they traveled to Samford and defeated the top-rated Bulldogs on penalty shots.

This year Morehead State, Murray State, Southeast Missouri and Jacksonville State join Eastern and Samford in the 2004 OVC Tournament.

While each team is familiar with each other, the coaches point to this season as the most competitive from the top to the bottom of the OVC in recent history.

“Interestingly enough, when you look at the OVC this year, Austin Peay (1-6-1 in the OVC) was one of the most consistent teams this year,” Morehead State coach Greg Sheen said. “But that just shows you how hard it was to win in conference this year because most of their losses were by one goal.”

Sheen went on to explain that it was also obvious to him that Eastern and Samford did separate themselves as the class of the OVC this year. But coaches have also realized that the teams who wound up in the middle of the pack are just as dangerous.

“Looking at any one of the teams in the middle of the conference, if they at all get hot over the weekend, they could come out as the winner,” Murray State coach Mike Minielli said. “In that sense, the bye for the top two seeds have to help (those two teams) and playing at home has to help.

“For us looking at either Samford or Eastern as the host teams, it is a day’s trip either way for us.”

While the coaches do agree that this year’s tournament could be one of the more open-ended tournaments in years, they do differ in how they go about preparing for the short-term competition.

Considering how close many of the matches were over the course of the season, each team is expecting that same kind of play in the tournament. But while the regular season allowed for a longer time frame for recovery if a team lost, the tournament forces teams to make every play count, otherwise they head home with a loss.

“(Play) will intensify quite a bit because all these upcoming games will turn on one or two plays,” Minielli said. “It can be on a great save, a great shot or pass even a whiff, the margin of error is just down to nothing.”

To prepare for such close play each coach coaxes their team toward the tournament in a different manner.

Eastern coach Steve Ballard looks for his team to sharpen their skills mentally and physically in hopes they will come together as the kind of team that will find success in the tournament.

By winning three of the last four tournaments, Ballard understands what it takes for different teams to take their skills to the next level and produce under the toughest conditions and against the toughest competition.

“Last year’s saying stays true for this year, when we talk about finding one team, one belief and one focus,” Ballard said. “We don’t really look at tape to prepare for these teams but for the next nine days we do prepare ourselves by getting healthy and becoming mentally and emotionally ready for the challenge.”

While Ballard doesn’t look at tape, both Minielli and Sheen believe that looking at tape takes more importance now than it has all year.

“Now we are going to prepare with more tape because we have played these teams so much scouting is important because we need to pick up on tendencies we need to improve on,” Minielli said. “Every team knows each other by now and it is the adjustments that will make the difference.”

The competition starts on Nov. 2 when the lower four seeds in the tournament start the play. Eastern, along with Samford, receives its first opponent in the second round after taking their bye in the first round.