Primarily a collection of news links about all 11 Horizon League teams on a daily basis, culled from online newspapers, school athletic websites, the conference website, and school newspapers, plus some other content from time to time.
Mid-Major Players Were Outclassed. Every team at any level, no matter how talented, has to have a few bench-warmers, and Detroit’s Ray McCallum, Jr., and Yale’s Greg Mangano were the duo on this team. We hate to pick on our mid-major representatives, but USCB’s Orlando Johnson was the only mid-major player to earn significant minutes on this team. He generally performed OK, but the tandem of McCallum and Mangano received most of their minutes in the four blowout games of the round-robin, and it’s clear that they both have work to do to reach the talent of the names above them on this roster. Mangano is heading into his senior season, but McCallum at least can take solace in the fact that he was the youngest player on the team and will substantially improve in coming seasons.
NON-BIG SIX
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7. Brad Brownell, Wright State, 2006-07
Brownell has succeeded everywhere he has coached, but he did perhaps his finest work in his first season at Wright State. The Raiders had finished .500 or worse in each of the four seasons before his arrival. Wright State went 23-10 overall and 13-3 in the Horizon League in Brownell's first season, and earned their first NCAA bid since 1993. Their 23 wins were the most the Raiders had recorded in a single season since entering the Division I ranks in 1987.
No surprise here, but there’s not a single mid-major among those squads (either home or away), meaning that in its eight-year existence, Rece Davis and company will have only been to two mid-major spots — Gonzaga in 2006 and 2009, and Southern Illinois in 2008 — and featured just three mid-major teams (SIU played Creighton). Certainly Butler, with its two consecutive appearances in the title game, deserves a visit from Erin and the fellas (except for a certain former Indiana coach, most likely), right? Then again, as cozy as Hinkle Fieldhouse is, we don’t know if it could contain the magnetic field of smoothness that would theoretically be generated by having the hairstyles of Davis, Jay Bilas, and Brad Stevens within 15 feet of each other. Better safe than sorry.
Butler F Khyle Marshall: Butler's run to the NCAA tournament championship game offered glimpses of what Marshall could offer this program in the next couple of seasons. Marshall came of age as an offensive rebounder in the postseason. He pulled down five offensive rebounds against Wisconsin, seven against Florida and five against VCU. Marshall averaged 5.8 points and 3.8 rebounds in 15.2 minutes as a freshman, but those numbers should go up quite a bit this season as Butler attempts to replace Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard. Marshall could develop into Butler's best overall player. The 6-7 sophomore learned plenty this summer while playing for the U.S. under-19 national team.
Cleveland State senior guard Jeremy Montgomery will get in some extra game time this summer to hone his sharpshooting skills. He took off for Europe this week for a seven-day tour with Global Sports Academy.
Cleveland State beats Valaparaiso, 76-65Cleveland State University guard Jeremy Montgomery celebrates his score and a foul against Valaparaiso. (John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer)
The GSA roster consists of 10 players and will play five games on the seven-day trip which will include cultural experiences in Amsterdam, Bruges, Brussels and London.
"I am extremely happy for Jeremy and this opportunity that awaits him," CSU head coach Gary Waters said in a release. "Jeremy is entering the most important season of his career, and going on this trip is the first step to what I feel will be an outstanding senior season for him."
Montgomery will be joined on the GSA squad by Bill Luther (Pitt-Johnstown), Jordan Stasyszyn (Shippensburg), Will O'Neal (Indianapolis), Ashton Smith (Indiana, PA), Darius Theus (VCU), Troy Daniels (VCU), Travis Carroll (Purdue), Josh Proctor (West Virginia Tech) and Justin Manns (Kent State). The team will be coached by Bill Brown of California University (Pa.).
"This will be a great opportunity for Justin after the improvement he made especially toward the end of last season,'' new Kent coach Rob Senderoff said. "For a guy who has not played as much as others in his career (one year of high school, no AAU, one year Division I) any extra time on the court Justin can get is a big bonus for him and our program.''
Obviously, with the slight point differential between the Tournament standard and the penalization standard, we could be looking at teams *coughUWMcough* who would go unpenalized by the NCAA in terms of practice time and scholarships, but would be prohibited from play in the Tournament. Over the next few months, we'll have to keep our eyes on this as the details of implementation are hashed out.
53 Orlando Magic 2012 NBA Mock Draft college basketball player profiles Orlando Ray McCallum PG Detroit
McCallum has great handles. If he can study under Jameer Nelson, he may earn the backup job pretty early
Rotnei Clarke will not be a Sooner after all: “Clarke has instead chosen Brad Stevens and the Butler Bulldogs as the destination for his final year of eligibility. Clarke will have to sit out the upcoming season due to NCAA transfer rules. It was believed that Clarke was on the verge of choosing OU, however when news broke last week regarding the NCAA/Tiny Gallon issue that caused enough uncertainty on Clarke’s part to go another way.” (Crimson adn Cream Machine)
The NCAA granted Toledo transfer Hayden Humes a waiver to play next season at the University of Illinois-Chicago after Toledo’s program lost three scholarships due to low APR scores. As a freshman Humes averaged 5.7 PPG and 5.1 RPG and he will be expected to contribute to a team that finished last in the Horizon League (7-24 overall, 2-16 in conference) and graduated its top three rebounders from last season. While Toledo will miss his production on the court they might miss his 3.43 GPA as a freshman even more as it may have been more helpful to the program in the long run.
