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.
Quite clearly the best team from a single-bid league this season. In Kendrick Nunn, Martez Walker and Jalen Hayes, Oakland probably has three of the five best players in the Horizon League. Greg Kampe's had some pros in the past, but this team has a chance to be his best ever.
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119. Northern Kentucky Norse
In Drew McDonald the Norse have the preseason Horizon POY. This team is second only to Oakland in that league. McDonald's got a great lead guard in Lavone Holland. NKU has swiftly adapted to life at the D-I level.
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144. Illinois-Chicago Flames
Crazy-fun potential in the Horizon League. Dikembe Dixson is back after an ACL injury last season. He'll ball to the wall. Tai Odiase is the best defender in the conference. The Flames will flirt with their first NCAA bid in 14 years.
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158. Wright State Raiders
Mark Alstork transferring to Illinois is going to leave a ... mark. But Scott Nagy's got good contributors returning, and he's probably going to be in the Horizon League title game come 2019. One of the better mid-major coaches out there.
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174. Detroit Titans
A bad season will lead to a blooming turnaround. Corey Allen was the Freshman of the Year in the Horizon, and Jaleel Hogan will be one of the best scorers in the conference.
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199. Green Bay Phoenix
Linc Darner's high-paced offense was not efficient last season. Sandy Cohen, a transfer from Marquette, figures to be a big-time acquisition and should help the Phoenix hover above .500 in the Horizon League.
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227. Youngstown State Penguins
Yet another program with a new coach. Jerrod Calhoun, who cut his teeth in D-II, takes over for Jerry Slocum. Big name to know is senior Cameron Morse, who led the Horizon League in scoring last season (23.2 ppg).
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274. Milwaukee Panthers
A top-three job in the Horizon, but the Panthers are on their third coach in three years after LaVall Jordan left in June when Butler, his alma mater, offered him the job.
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299. Cleveland State Vikings
The Vikings hired Dennis Felton to replace Gary Waters. It's a total construction job here. CSU last made the NCAAs in 2009.
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333. IUPUI Jaguars
With Wichita State moving from the Valley to the AAC, and Valpo moving from the Horizon League to the Valley, IUPUI moved from the Summit League to the Horizon. A good move at a bad time, as the Jags lose their three best players.
It took just two days of practice and one half of game action for Kay Felder to leapfrog Ryan Arcidiacono as the primary backup point guard. And it’s taken only three games for Felder to establish himself enough to force Hoiberg into a decision whether to make the 5-foot-9 reserve a regular in the rotation. Felder was brought in as added depth while Dunn and Cameron Payne heal from injury. But he’s become a pleasant spark plug off the bench, averaging 8.3 points (on nine shots a game) and 4.0 assists (against three turnovers a night).
“The one thing he can do on this roster is he can get downhill,” Hoiberg said. “He can create his shot. He can make a tough shot. He creates space when he does get a mismatch. We’ve liked what we’ve seen so far. We just need consistent play.”
Felder was at his best Tuesday against his former Cleveland teammates. He scored 13 points on 5-for-11 shooting with four assists in 16 minutes. The Cleveland broadcast crew even marveled at Felder’s improvement. Hoiberg said Wednesday he likes what Felder brings off the bench, particularly on ball screens with Cristiano Felicio. But with Dunn nearing a return, it’ll be interesting to see how Hoiberg uses his newfound spark going forward.
Kay Felder was selected by the Cavs with the No. 54 overall pick in 2016 before being claimed off waivers by the Bulls on Oct. 16. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
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9. Not forcing turnovers
Compounding the Bulls’ turnover problem is that they’re not generating any of their own. Chicago averages just 4.3 steals and 12.3 opponent turnovers, ranking ahead of only Charlotte (4.0, 11.7) in both categories.
Felder already looks like an annoyance defensively, and Nwaba doesn’t appear capable of taking defense lightly. Dunn will offer more resistance when he returns, but the rest of the cupboard is empty. It’ll be hard to improve in the short term with token perimeter defense failing to force decisions and cause chaos. The Bulls so far don’t appear to be focused on generating turnovers as much as they are on forcing misses and securing rebounds.
Akron (John Groce) and Cleveland State (Dennis Felton) have new head coaches with rebuilding rosters. Veteran Kent State coach Rob Senderoff must retool from the graduation loss of All-MAC forwards Jimmy Hall and Deon Edwin. Here is a capsule look at each team, three weeks into preseason practice.
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CLEVELAND STATE -- Like Akron, Felton and the Vikings have had a lot of player turnover since the end of last season, with the senior backcourt of Bobby Word, Kenny Carpenter key to the immediate future. Felton has been implementing a lot of updated defensive concepts hoping to help his undersized team be more competitive over the course of the season.
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Officials with all three programs said they are looking into the possibility of playing that extra exhibition. Another limitation is players can't miss class time, meaning games will have to be played on the weekend and/or against nearby competition.
Horizon League member Youngstown State announced Wednesday that it will play host to Thiel in an exhibition game Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Christopher Palombizio is his name, and basketball is his game.
Palombizio rotates between small forward and power forward. This is his 16th year playing the game he loves.
Sophomore Palombizio is majoring in Human Resource Development, and has a tentative graduation date of 2019/2020.
Favorite movie: Friday. Favorite color: Black. Favorite currently enrolled class: Career Development.
“My favorite thing about basketball is the ups and downs in which it teaches you a lot about yourself and challenges you in all aspects.”
With Valpo star Alec Peters no longer exerting his dominance in the Horizon League, the door is wide open for Oakland and Greg Kampe to storm through as a contender once again in the league, and could win it outright. Kampe brings back a rock star lineup of seniors in Martez Walker, Jalen Hayes and Nick Daniels which all played major roles last season and now have the experience to run the show in the Horizon.
Factor in the presence of Illinois transfer Kendrick Nunn, and you could easily make the case for the Golden Grizzlies as a Horizon League favorite and Cinderella darling in the making. The shoe absolutely fits.
The UIC Flames have arguably the deepest roster in the Horizon League this season, and they have youth on their side. Five of their top six returning scorers are all sophomores in 2017-18, which means they could still get better with time. Leading the way on the back end is guard Tarkus Ferguson, who stuffed the stat sheet almost every game as a freshman.
Ferguson averaged 11.2 points per game, which was good for the third-best mark on the team last season, and tops among all UIC guards. He also averaged a team-high 4.9 assists, and added 5.3 rebounds for good measure. He had 17 performances in which he recorded at least 10 points, three rebounds, and three assists over the course of the year.
The one knock on Ferguson’s game was his ball security. He averaged over three turnovers a game, and had three or more turnovers in 22 games. If he can limit the amount of turnovers he coughs up on a nightly basis, his personal statistics will improve considerably, along with his teammates. Regardless, Ferguson’s ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor is impressive. Look for him to continue to stuff the stat sheet this season.
First Team
G Chandler Hutchison, Boise State
G TJ Haws, BYU
G/F Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure
F Jalen Hayes, Oakland
F/C Jock Landale, Saint Mary's
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Fourth Team
G Trey Kell, Rhode Island
G Joe Chealey, Middle Tennessee
G/F Thomas Wilder, Western Michigan
F Peyton Aldridge, Davidson
F/C Drew McDonald, Gonzaga
•UIC was picked to finish third in the Horizon League's preseason poll and is coming off semifinal appearances in the conference tournament and the CBI. The Flames, who went 17-19, were two wins away in the league tournament from making the NCAA tournament.
That record marked a major improvement from their 5-25 mark in coach Steve McClain's first season in 2015-16.
Adding former Illinois and Proviso East great Dee Brown to the staff has city hoop heads talking too.
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Coaches notice each other's recruiting and development. McClain said he has felt teams in the city have been turning a corner since last season.
"You had a group of coaches who felt like they were tracking in the right direction," he said. "It had been a while since even coaches felt they were tracking that way. When you look at the success at the end of the year for every program in here, there were bright spots. It is a great time in the city for all of the universities."
There are also road trips to Utah and UCF and the annual rivalry game against Illinois in St. Louis. They won’t play in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, and while most of the remaining nonconference games aren’t exactly walkovers, they’re also not terribly impressive, either. Green Bay, which ranked 190th in KenPom last year, is the best of the bunch. In short, Missouri’s nonconference schedule is designed to produce a pretty record that’s mostly devoid of substance. If the freshmen are ready, Missouri could better its win total from last season before Christmas.
Making the jump from the Horizon League to the Big Ten is no easy task, but Mark Alstork -- a grad transfer who began his career at Ball State -- has plenty of experience under his belt to make the leap with ease.
The 6-5 Ohio native is a high volume scorer coming off a season in which he averaged 19.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists for Wright State. And in Brad Underwood's high-octane run-and-fun offense, he should do well replacing the departed Tracy Abrams.
The Illini are going to have an offense to fear in 2017-18, and Alstork will be a major factor in that transformation if Underwood's offensive fingerprint translates from Oklahoma State to his new home in Champaign.
