As good or bad as the 2015-16 season has gone for the Mountain East Conference's men's and women's basketball teams, the chance to wipe the slate clean begins Tuesday.
The MEC's 12 men's and women's squads begin their conference tournaments this week. First-round games all tip off Tuesday on the home courts of the higher-seeded teams. The winners of those games advance to the Charleston Civic Center for the quarterfinals - women on Thursday, men on Friday - against the top four seeds.
On the men's side, fifth-seeded Charleston hosts 12th-seeded Urbana at 7:30 p.m. at the Charleston Catholic Athletic Complex, while 10th-seeded West Virginia State visits West Virginia Wesleyan at 7 p.m. The UC and WVSU women both host games, the Golden Eagles welcoming Shepherd at 5:30 p.m. at the Charleston Catholic Athletic Complex and the Yellow Jackets hosting the University of Virginia College at Wise at 7 p.m. at the Walker Convocation Center.
The rest of the men's bracket shapes up with sixth-seed Notre Dame hosting No. 11 UVa-Wise and No. 8 Shepherd hosting No. 9 Glenville State in the first round. The Shepherd-Glenville State winner plays No. 1 West Liberty at 6 p.m. Friday, the WVSU-Wesleyan winner plays No. 2 Wheeling Jesuit at noon Friday, the Notre Dame-Wise winner plays No. 3 Fairmont State at 2:15 p.m. Friday and the UC-Urbana winner plays No. 4 Concord at 8:15 p.m. Friday.
The men's bracket is one of the strongest in Division II, with three teams in the national top five - No. 1 Wheeling Jesuit, No. 2 West Liberty and No. 5 Fairmont State. Those national rankings likely will change after West Liberty defeated Jesuit on Saturday.
In the women's bracket, No. 6 Urbana hosts No. 11 West Virginia Wesleyan and No. 5 Fairmont State hosts No. 12 Concord. On Thursday, the WVSU-Wise winner plays No. 1 West Liberty at 6 p.m., the UC-Shepherd winner plays No. 2 Wheeling Jesuit at noon, the Urbana-Wesleyan winner plays No. 3 Notre Dame at 2:15 p.m. and the FSU-Concord winner plays No. 4 Glenville State at 8:15 p.m.
The MEC's four Kanawha Valley entrants each enter the tournament with varying levels of momentum. The UC women have won four straight, while UC's men have won two in a row, including a victory over Concord, by an average of 32.5 points. The WVSU women have lost three of their last four, while the Yellow Jackets men have lost seven straight and 12 of their last 13.
A surging team has new life breathed into its season, UC men's coach Dwaine Osborne said. The confidence entering the postseason is amplified and, with every team owning the same chance to compete in the tournament, there are new goals to set.
"Sometimes you get going in early February and realize you can't win the regular season championship," Osborne said, "and sometimes, you're just trying to get to the finish line, so to speak.
"So our thing has been for the last month to try to get better," he added, "try to improve, control the things we can control, and get ourselves ready to where we're going to peak at the right time. Hopefully, we're ready to do that."
On the flip side, a struggling team has to muster up its motivation. WVSU women's coach David Smith was disappointed in the way his team handled its regular-season-ending loss to Charleston, where it shot just 17 percent from the floor in the first half. He said his players must figure out for themselves whether they want their season to continue past Tuesday.
"All we can do is come in, practice, go through stuff, do some clips from our game down there and see if they want to play," Smith said. "There's nothing I can do. There are no electrodes I can put on their heads to clear things up. They're the ones who have to decide and say, 'Let's get this team, we beat them twice and beat them at home,' or say, 'Hey, this was embarrassing, we didn't play well, let's just get it over with.' "