Courtesy: Austin Peay Sports Information

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BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - The Ohio Valley Conference has announced its schedules for the 2012-13 season, one week after announcing plans for divisional play for men and women's basketball.

The schedules feature 16 games with each team playing divisional foes twice during the season (home and away) and playing teams in the opposite division once a season. When creating the schedule it also was a league priority to play as many games as possible after January 1, avoiding December contests.

Austin Peay men and women's basketball, in fact, had only one December game scheduled in 2012 and that was East Division member Morehead State. The Governors already have rescheduled that conference game to Wednesday, Jan. 9. The Lady Govs also are planning on moving their contest slated that day.

Men's games will continue to be contested on Thursday and Saturday while for the second straight season women's games will be played on Saturday and Monday.

Schedule dates are subject to change if teams go through the change-of-schedule approval process with the conference office.

In 2012-13, Austin Peay men and women will play host to Murray State, Saturday, Jan. 12. In addition, the Governors will play both Nashville-based schools, Belmont and Tennessee State, in Clarksville next season. Both the Govs and Lady Govs will play TSU, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. The men will play Belmont, Thursday, Feb.7, while the women will play the Bruins, Monday, Feb. 11.

The Governors will play the other East Division members-Jacksonville State, Tennessee Tech and Eastern Kentucky-on the road in 2013.

The 2013-14 schedules will mirror these schedules, meaning if a team played an opponent during 2012-13 on the road, that team will host that same opponent during 2013-14 season in a corresponding date.

The 2012-13 campaign will include the addition of Belmont and give the OVC 12 teams for the first time since the conference, the eighth oldest Division I league, was formed in 1948.

The West Division will include Austin Peay, Eastern Illinois, Murray State, Southeast Missouri State, SIUE and UT Martin.

The East Division will include Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech.

The final piece of divisional play will be determining tournament seeding and bracketing. The OVC Championships sub-committee is studying those issues now and the Directors of Athletics will make a decision soon.

-AP-