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.
In a similar vein to Hill, Wright State’s growth in 2025-26 is in part due
to the sophomore development of TJ Burch who arrived from Ball State this
past offseason. Burch had played just 21 games as a freshman with the
Cardinals and averaged only 4.8 PPG before transferring over to Wright
State where he’s managing 12.3 PPG, 3.5 APG and led the Horizon League
with 3.5 SPG. That was enough to earn Burch the conference’s Defensive
Player of the Year award in addition to a plethora of other silverware in
just his second season of college basketball.
Bad feeling for ol' Wright State that this will go similarly to the last
time they were a 14 seed and got smoked by Tennessee in 2018. Wright can
score very effectively in half-court and pounds the post just like they did
back then, but that's a really bad idea against an excellent post defense in
Virginia. On the other end of the court, teams have been picking apart
Wright all season long with off-ball screens, which they simply don't seem
well-equipped to defend:
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Actions like these could lead to a fairly big offensive day for the Cavs.
Somewhat similar to Tennessee's game back then (which the Vols won by 24)
this has a strong smell to it of a game where Virginia motors down early and
doesn't look back. Not sure the Hoos have the same getaway power as other 3
seeds - in fact I know they don't - but in this specific setup something in
the range of a 14-24 point win feels accurate. Virginia averaged 1.32 PPP
against non-top 100 competition this year and held a +16% 2PT% delta in
those games. When you get back 44% of your missed shots in said games you're
very well equipped to avoid a miserable Round of 64 experience. Wright
against top-100 competition: 0.99 PPP. If those held it's an 87-65 UVA
victory, so we'll see.
The
Wright State Raiders cruised through the traditionally unpredictable
Horizon League this season, going 23-11 overall and 15-5 in conference.
They rank 118th in offensive adjusted efficiency and 193rd in defensive
adjusted efficiency.
Michael Cooper has
been one of the most underrated freshman in the country for Wright
State. The 6’3 guard is averaging 13.4 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.2
assists while shooting 44.9% overall and 36.4% from three-point. He can
be streaky, as any freshman can, but when he’s on he’s nearly impossible
to stop.
As a team, they are 59th in effective field goal
percentage, 88th in offensive rebounding percentage, 50th in
three-point shooting percentage, 74th in two-point shooting percentage,
and 90th in non-steal turnover percentage. They score a ton of points,
but shockingly don’t run a super fast offense. The Raiders are just
192nd in tempo and 228th in average possession length at nearly 18
seconds per possession.
Virginia is 29-5 and 13th in KenPom. They
sit at 27th in offensive adjusted efficiency and 16th in defensive
adjusted efficiency. This isn’t the old Cavaliers that are scoring 50
points per game, but they still run a slower tempo under Ryan Odom as
they are 270th in tempo and 149th in average possession length.
Wright
State is going to have to shoot their way out of this matchup and with
as good of a defense as Virginia has, it’s going to be very difficult.
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