NCAA Basketball Preview 2014-15: Horizon
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The Horizon League is guaranteed to have a different team represent in the the NCAA Tournament as reigning Horizon League Tournament champion UW-Milwaukee is ineligible for this year's postseason due to low APR scores.
UW-Green Bay was the conference's strongest team last season going 24-7 overall including a huge win over Virginia and a three-point loss to Wisconsin. Green Bay was second in the nation in blocks last season, but is losing versatile 7-1 center Alec Brown who could both block shots and make three-pointers at an efficient rate. Other than Brown the rest of last year's team is back including shifty guard Kiefer Sykes. Sykes might be the best mid-major point guard in the nation and is tougher than his "official" 5-11, 175-pound frame would indicate. While beating an NCAA Tournament one-seed won't happen for Green Bay again this year, they could have the best record in the conference again and push fir an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.
The trendy pick to win the conference this season is Cleveland State, who was second in the conference at 12-4. While Cleveland State should break .500 in the Horizon League, they will not have the success they had last year when they won 21 games. Bryn Forbes averaged 15.6 points per game last season as a freshman, but is transferring to Michigan State. Trey Lewis and Anton Gandy had solid sophomore season's in 2013-14 and will play a key role in the development of point guard Josh Mitchell, who looks like a younger version of Keifer Sykes.
Wright State was the preseason pick to win the conference last year, but finished third with a 21-15 record overall. They will likely be towards the back of the pack this year as they had balanced scoring among their starting five last year, but is losing nearly all of their starting five from last year. Wright State should be a force in two years the way they are recruiting, but is currently in rebuilding mode.
Valparaiso is a young team with potential, but will need another year before they contend for the conference title. Alec Peters looks to be a future conference player of the year candidate after averaging 12.7 and 4.8 rebounds per game as a freshman. There are just too many freshman and sophomores on the roster for Valparaiso to make a big run this year though they should still hover around .500 in the conference.
Youngstown State could surprise some people in the conference last season. They were very relent on their starting five to score last season with four players averaging over 10 points per game. They lost top scorer from last year Kendrick Perry, who averaged 21.3 points per game last season, but saw sophomore center Bobby Hain developer into a solid low-post threat. Marcus Keene showed flashes of greatness as a freshman last year and will be running the point for the Penguins this year. Youngstown State could easily be the second-best team in the conference this year and make it to the NCAA Tournament if UW-Green Bay stumbles in the conference tournament again.
The rest of the conference should be a non-factor. UW-Milwaukee was 7-9 in conference last season despite making the NCAA Tournament and saw a lot of last year's team graduate. Add in the postseason ban and they have all the makings of a 20 loss team.
Oakland lost 20 games last season with Travis Bader becoming the all-time Division I three-point scoring king. With Bader gone, Oakland could win as few as five games this season. Detroit is still recovering from the loss of Ray McCollum Jr., though the addition of Colorado transfer Chris Jenkins could get this team around the 20 win range this season. Illinois-Chicago was 1-15 in-conference and 6-25 overall, the whole program needs a massive overhaul.
UW-Green Bay should be the team to beat once again, but the conference aside from that could experience a big shake-up from last year. The Horizon League is not the same without Butler, but if Green Bay continue to build it's program, they might be able to get that stealth bomber team that brings the conference national publicity.
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