On The Horizon

Jim Squire

Game! Of! The! Night! 12/30/2008: Cleveland State at Wright State--The Mid-Majority
Good Morning Hoops Nation: December 31--The Mid-Majority

All Division I teams will always be eligible for the same basketball national title as Kansas and Florida, but this emerging trend is putting a whole new spin on the idea of "championship subdivision." The number of games between the top eight conferences and the rest is dwindling even as the number of total games is increasing. The subtextual numbers are clear: during non-conference play, the teams in the Big Six, the Mountain West and Conference USA are now scheduling amongst themselves more often.

Which is exactly what most college basketball fans want. More games between big-time teams in the big-time leagues mean that more fans can be peeled off from football during bowl season, which can result in big-time ratings. And the increasing number of television slots is helping make this happen -- a few years ago, there was no CBS College Sports or Big Ten Network or 1,000 games a year on the Worldwide Leader's growing list of properties, and there was no ESPNU. Nowadays, there are college basketball games on every night during November and December.

If you're a power conference or individual Big Six school in a troubled economy, and you're given the choice between an ESPNU date with a similar-level team on one hand, and a $100,000 payout to a mid-major or potentially embarrassing loss to a Valley or Horizon team on the other, which will you choose? Total no-brainer: you get to save money as well as face, gain some national exposure too. I'm not sure that there's anything resembling mass collusion that's causing BCS schools to scale back on games against our teams, it's all just market forces and logic.
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Conference Call

Horizon League: Life in this year's top mid-major conference just got more complicated. In last night's G!O!T!N!, Wright State clamped down on Syracuse-beating preseason favorite Cleveland State 72-61 to send the Vikings into a 1-2 hole. The three remaining undefeateds are 2-0 Butler (off beating UAB in a minor Red Line Upset) and Green Bay. Your surprise conference leader is 3-0 Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which posted an impressive 71-66 win over Illinois-Chicago last night.

The State of the Other 22: Week 5--The Mid-Majority

1. Butler (Horizon League), 113.661, 11-1 (2-0)

Of course, there was no Week 4 here on this site thanks to the holidays, but the index has been churning out results on an hourly basis anyway. The Bulldogs are first in the RPI, fourth in strength of schedule, and first in the TS-22. They're 3-0 since our last transmission of this type, having beaten Florida Gulf Coast, Xavier and UAB. While ball control has been the No. 1 weapon of the past few years, this team is much more dynamic. Take, for example, the UAB win: +6 on turnovers, but a resounding +9 on the boards and a gentlemanly -11 on fouls.
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10. Cleveland State (Horizon League), 91.745, 10-5 (1-2)

Oh, Vikings, do you have to turn the Horizon League into a mini-version of last year's A-14? Cleveland State is parenthetically underwater after losing to resurgent Wright State Tuesday night, shooting just 36 percent and allowing the Raiders to shoot 54. But the wins are impressive and will take their hopes far; it probably wouldn't be a good idea to lose again for a while though. They're at Detroit (1/3), then home against the two Chicago teams next week.

Defense, Then Offense Key Wright State Win--Hoopville