Primarily a collection of news links about all 12 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.
For those of you who thought the Northern Kentucky University basketball
program could not get more international after last season, with starters
from Perth, Australia, and Hamilton, New Zealand, on the Norse’s far-flung
roster, you haven’t seen anything yet. You’ll need a program and a world
atlas for this team in the early going.
The Norse, who will introduce the team at a summer practice July 21, will
feature an additional two players, both 6-foot-8, from Australia in addition
to starting point guard Ethan Elliott from Perth. They are
senior transfer Noah Pagotto from Port Macquarie by way of
East Texas A&M and junior transfer
Will ShorttGabrielius Jokubauskas is a 6-5 freshman from
Vilnius, Lithuania, where he played in the National Basketball League there.
Patrick Otto Mae is a 6-9 freshman from Talinn, Estonia, by
way of New Hampshire’s Tilton Prep.
Another returnee is redshirt sophomore
Donovan Rakotonanahary, a 6-6 guard from Antavaro,
Madagascar by way of Oak Hill Academy He’s joined by 6-9 redshirt freshman
Juanmo Ruiz, from Begijar, Spain and the Under-19 national
league there.
With no Northern Kentuckians on the roster, the lone Greater Cincinnati
product is 6-4 junior returnee Bryce Darbyshire, from
Cincinnati’s Sycamore High School. Another 6-4 returnee is redshirt freshman
JJ Apathjang from Salt Lake City’s Judge Memorial High
School.
B.J. Davis-Ray, a 6-6 sophomore guard transfer from SMU, is
a St. Louis native who starred at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Eric Acker is a 6-3 guard transfer from East New York, NY,
who starred at Long Island University and played at LaSalle before heading
to NKU.
Another returnee is 6-7 Ryan Tolliver from Northwest
Catholic High in Hartford, Conn. He’s joined by newcomer guard, 6-2
Willie Foster from Lima Senior High in Lima, Ohio.
Sam Vinson (Photo provided)
That’s seven international players from Australia, Spain, Madagascar,
Estonia and Lithuania. And six U.S. players from Connecticut, Utah,
California, New York and two from Ohio.
By comparison, the 2026-2027 NKU women’s basketball team has three
international players – from Australia, Israel and Canada – and 11 US
players with four Northern Kentuckians among six Greater Cincinnatians.
One more Norse hoops moment
As NKU alum Sam Vinson finishes up his first season for the
Kalgoorlie Goldfield Giants in the Australian Semipro league, the 6-5 guard
is putting up some decent numbers with team-leading totals of 5.67 assists
per game and .47 blocks per game with second-best team averages of 20.13
points and 6.93 rebounds.
In New York City before World War II,
all oral leases ended on May 1. On the same day, a vast number of the city’s renters would pick up and
change residences. This phenomenon was known, appropriately enough, as
“Moving Day.”
Moving Day may have died out in the Big Apple, but a version of it persists
in the world of college athletics. On July 1, athletic directors everywhere
will ditch their 2025–26 calendars in favor of 2026–27. With the start of
the new academic year, over two dozen schools playing FBS football and/or
Division I basketball will change conferences.
Here’s a look at the programs changing conferences Wednesday in either
basketball or football, followed by a brief note on each.
Every Division I school switching conferences on July 1 in basketball or FBS
football
SCHOOL
OLD CONFERENCE
NEW CONFERENCE
Northern Illinois
MAC
Horizon League (most sports), Mountain West (football only)
Northern Illinois
Northern Illinois was a stalwart in the MAC, but is leaving its longtime
conference with football heading to the Mountain West. | Jamie
Sabau-Imagn Images
UNI is leaving the MAC for the Mountain West in football and the Horizon
League in most sports after 29 years. This is not a wholly unfamiliar move
for the Huskies, who’ve been highly successful on the gridiron in the MAC:
they played football in the Big West for three years in the 1990s, and three
years in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League) in
the same decade.
