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.
It’s PENGUINSZN again. Youngstown State won the regular
season crown last year, but came up short in the tournament semifinals.
This year, they went right back at it, finishing just a game out of
first place. The ‘Guins are led by Ziggy Reid, who helped lead Merrimack
to two regular season NEC crowns, and DJ Burns, who played in the NCAA
Tournament on Murray State’s awesome 2021-22 team. YSU won nine of its
last 12 and gets a bye to the quarterfinals – a game which it will host
on its home court featuring the scariest looking penguin imaginable, which is a near-unbeatable home-court advantage.
Elsewhere in the conference, our favorite extinct
friends, the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons – who have seemingly been on
the doorstep for years now – are middle of the pack this year. However,
they ended the year strong, blowing the doors off of Green Bay on the
road, which was in the thick of the title race at the time, and then
beating always-tough Wright State on the road. They’ll start the Horizon
tournament at home in the first round against Robert Morris on Tuesday
after beating them by 18 on Saturday on the same floor.
Excitement level: The same as if you saw a polar bear walking around Arlington, Texas,
or a penguin walking around Youngstown, Ohio, or a mastodon walking
around anywhere tbh. Pretty f’ing lit (maybe a little concerned).
Horizon tourney predicted champ: Youngstown State (#2 seed) Dates: March 5-12 Location: Campus sites and Indianapolis, IN 2023 tourney champ: Northern Kentucky (#4 seed) Fun fact: only 3 champs in past 7 years are Cleveland State/Northern Kentucky/Wright State Seeding: 7 of past 8 champs were not #1 seed Oakland
has been the class of the league this season…but the Grizzlies have
never won this title game so perhaps they are not ready to ascend to the
summit just yet. The Penguins have never hoisted this trophy since
joining the league in 2001 but after sweeping Oakland they seem poised
for a breakthrough. Coach Jerrod Calhoun has demonstrated the exact kind
of progress an administration wishes for: 20-loss seasons during his
1st 2 years as he implements his identity, followed by 5 straight
winning seasons including back-to-back 22-win campaigns. His team has
been inconsistent this year but it is encouraging to see that YSU has
had a whopping 5 separate winning streaks of at least 3 games so they
know what it takes to get hot/stay hot. Each of their top-5 scorers are
seniors and the offense is outstanding: their 81.5 PPG/77.2 FT% are both
top-25 in the nation.
• The Horizon
League has looked like a two-bid conference for much of the season.
Green Bay played outside the league with wins over Washington State and
Creighton. However, the Phoenix are now the first team out after losing
to UW Milwaukee. Winning out the Horizon League Tournament is paramount
to securing an automatic bid, and Cleveland State is no slouch.
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