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.
The former Kentucky Mr. Basketball winner opted to take
on a smaller role than he would have had if he stuck around at IUPUI,
and it’s paid off. He’s hitting just under 43% from deep, and has
stepped up as WKU’s second leading scorer at 13.4 points per game. His
ability to space the floor and open up the lane has been crucial for
guys like Charles Bassey and Carson Williams who may operate closer to the hoop.
Mason Faulkner — Western Carolina (via Northern Kentucky)
Faulkner
went from role guy at Northern Kentucky to do-it-all guy for Mark
Prosser and the Catamounts. Right now. he’s the only player in college
basketball to average at least 20 points (20.9), five assists (6.3) and
five rebounds (5.3) per game.
At just 6’1 and 165 pounds, Faulkner
hasn’t been shy of carrying the load. He’s scored 20 or more points in
six of Western Carolina’s seven games against Division I opponents, and
his 13 point, 10 rebound and 10 assist performance is one of just six
triple-doubles in college basketball this season. His play has been a
huge reason why Western Carolina is only one win away from matching last
season’s total.
IUPUI swapped one transfer on this list for another.
Best known for his time as a backcourt running mate with Chris Clemons that included a game in which the duo each hit 10 threes, Burk
has been one of the best pickups in the Horizon League. The
Indianapolis native is in the top 25 nationally in scoring average at
21.2 points per game, and his 32 made threes are tied for sixth in the
country. He’s hit over 44% from deep, and his 26 points propelled the
Jaguars to their lone Division I win against South Florida.
It’s looking more and more like a rebuilding year with
interim head coach Byron Rimm II, but Burk has been an excellent
addition as a junior.
Antoine Davis of Detroit-Mercy and Jomaru Brown
of Eastern Kentucky shoot a lot. The problem is, they’re not shooting
very well at all. Despite nearly reaching a 42.5% usage rate, Davis and
Brown have both been horrendously inefficient. Instead of some numbers,
here’s a chart of every single college basketball player plotted by
usage and o-rating (the average player gets used 20% of the time and has
a 100 o-rating, as one can see on the chart:
Davis and Brown are extreme outliers, Brown especially
so. No one in the country has taken more shots for less payoff than
Brown. Hopefully Brown can start shooting better because right now he’s
taking 6 threes per game and only making 29.3% of them.
The Fun Police
One of my favorite concepts in soccer are “Fair Play
Awards”, which give players/teams a nice medal/trophy for committing the
fewest yellow and red cards. American sports do not have this—nobody
cares if you commit more fouls as long as you win the game. Teams have
to do something particularly egregious, like smashing a helmet down on
someone’s head, to even get a mention from the press.
Crazily
enough, the Fair Play Award system is used for actual, tangible
benefits in soccer. From 1995-2016, the least penalized leagues in
Europe were given extra qualifying berths into the Europa League, a huge
reward. Now the award is given out in as a 50,000 euro cash prize for
each team to be used for “fair play or respect-themed projects”! Imagine
if an NBA or NFL team got a cash bonus for committing fewer penalties!
In honor of this, I looked at the best and worst teams
based on fouls called (not fouls drawn). The most disciplined team
appears to be Virginia, which leads college basketball in fewest free
throws allowed (Weber State and Nebraska are second and third). Okay,
that’s no fun. Let’s look at the best players by fouls called:
Congrats to Noah Locke and Brian White
for refusing to foul. Considering they both play over 50% of minutes,
that’s an astonishingly low number of fouls called per 40 minutes. Also,
it’s freakin’ hilarious that Brad Calipari is third.
And at-large hopes for mid-majors continue to dwindle as Vermont was handled by Cincinnati, Bradley fell at Memphis and Western Kentucky lost again – this time to Wright State.
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