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JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State men's basketball team will start a key Ohio Valley Conference stretch on Thursday, when the Gamecocks welcome UT Martin to Pete Mathews Coliseum for a 7:45 p.m. tip. JSU and Martins Family Clothing are trying to “RED OUT THE PETE” to benefit the American Cancer Society, and the first 500 fans will receive a free t-shirt.

With just five OVC games remaining on their 2009-10 schedule, the Gamecocks (10-13, 6-7 OVC) will get four of them out of the way in the next seven days, beginning with a visit from the Skyhawks (4-19, 1-12 OVC) for the first of back-to-back home games.

JSU takes on a UT Martin squad that is coming off of its first OVC win of the season on Tuesday, a 73-70 victory over Southeast Missouri in Martin, Tenn. The Skyhawks represent the first of the Gamecocks' two-game homestand, with league-leading Murray State capping it off on Saturday afternoon.

The Gamecocks currently sit in a three-way tie for fifth place in the league standings with Eastern Illinois and Tennessee Tech with less than three weeks before the conference tournament begins. The three are lobbying for position in the eight-team tournament, one that Jax State hasn't made since 2006.

JSU is coming off of an 0-2 road trip to Kentucky that saw the Gamecocks drop games at Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky to fall below .500 in league play. The loss to EKU was a heartbreaking one-point defeat on Saturday in which a last-second attempt at a game winner by Jeremy Bynum missed long.

JSU won the previous meeting between the two on Jan. 16 in Martin, Tenn., a 73-63 decision in favor of the Gamecocks. JSU holds a 33-18 advantage in the all-time series that dates back to the two schools' days in Division II's Gulf South Conferene.

The Gamecocks are led by junior Trenton Marshall, whose 18.3 points per game leads the OVC and ranks 60th nationally. Junior Nick Murphy scored 15 points in the loss to the Colonels, passing Courtney Bradley in third place on the school's Division I scoring list. Murphy, a Bronx, N.Y., native, now has 955 points in his career.

Senior Amadou Mbodji, who has been improving down the stretch in his final season as a Gamecock, has moved into second on the school's Division I career rebounds list. The native of Senegal needs just eight boards to become JSU's second 500-rebound player since the Gamecocks moved up to Division I in 1995-96.