Lilly King doesn’t regret retiring last August from competitive swimming, a sport she participated in since age seven. “It’s nice to not have to get up at 5:30 every morning to go to practice and worry about what I’m doing every single day,” she says.
Her story — from training in local pools to winning her first gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Olympics — came full circle March 3, as she championed a new wave of female athletes at the Evansville Regional Sports Commission’s inaugural Power of Women in Sports Luncheon.
Held on the eve of the Ohio Valley Conference women’s and men’s basketball tournament, the luncheon celebrated King’s accomplishments by placing a sign in her honor near the Deaconess Aquatic Center in Garvin Park and announcing the winner of a namesake award. The first Lilly King Award for Integrity and Athletic Excellence was given to North High School senior Libby Ryan, an outside hitter on the Huskies’ volleyball team who has committed to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She completed her senior season with 357 kills and a .309 hitting percentage on a Class 4A team that finished 28-3 and second in the Southern Indiana Conference.
“I think it’s just really nice to get in here and get to honor Libby and all the things she’s done in her career, and get to celebrate her moving forward to Oral Roberts, get to celebrate with the leaders of the community,” King says.
Attention now turns to the women’s basketball team at the University of Southern Indiana. Under the leadership of longtime head coach Rick Stein, the No. 3 seed is aiming to clinch its second conference title, its first coming in the 2023-24 season. After entering the 2024-25 tournament as the No. 5 seed, USI advanced to the semifinals before losing to eventual OVC champion Tennessee Tech University. Now, the Screaming Eagles are ready to reclaim the championship. (Missing in action is USI’s men’s team coached by Stan Gouard, which didn’t qualify for the tournament.)
There’s more at stake at this year’s tournament: It’s the first opportunity a title-winning Screaming Eagles would be eligible to compete in the NCAA tournament after completing its reclassification to Division I sports.
For Sports Commission Executive Director Brandon McClish, that’s a big reason why local fans should head to Downtown Evansville. “The first ticket punch to March Madness happens in the Ford Center,” he says. “The University of Southern Indiana women’s basketball team is coming in as a No. 3 seed in a powerhouse of a conference, where anyone can win on the women’s side.”
OVC Acting Commissioner Greg Walter agrees. Heading into the tournament, “our top five men’s seeds were within three games of the lead. The top four women’s seeds were within three games of the lead at the end of the year,” he says. “Both our men’s and women’s conference rankings in the NCAA are higher by multiple slots this year and were higher by multiple slots last year, so we’re growing and getting better and improving, and we think that fans that come out are going to see a really high-quality product on the floor.”
The 2025-26 OVC tournament runs March 4-7. The Screaming Eagles take the court at 3 p.m. March 5 in a quarterfinals game against No. 7 Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
