On Monday morning, the HoriZone Roundtable All-League Teams and Awards were released — or my take on them at least. Shortly after, the Horizon League’s official picks came in. There were some stark differences that I wanted to take a little time to look at.
First, we’ll take a look at the awards.
| Award | HoriZone Roundtable | Horizon League |
|---|---|---|
| Player of the Year | Loudon Love | Loudon Love |
| Freshman of the Year | Amari Davis | Amari Davis |
| Defensive Player of the Year | Tray Maddox | Jalen Tate |
| Sixth Man of the Year | PJ Pipes | Devin Morgan |
| Coach of the Year | Dennis Gates | Dennis Gates & Scott Nagy |
I’m just going to say it: we’re the tiebreaker. Congratulations to the Horizon League Coach of the Year Dennis Gates.
Tate being named Defensive Player of the Year is an interesting pick given that he missed one third of the league’s schedule, but I definitely felt I was handicapping myself by not picking him. I guess most voters didn’t want to do that. Fair enough.
Morgan over Pipes is an interesting pick that I have to think came about because Green Bay’s pace inflates numbers. Not only was Pipes a consistently productive bench player, he was arguably better on the bench than in the lineup.
Obviously I have no argument with the rest of the awards.
That brings us to the All-Horizon League First Team:
| HoriZone Roundtable | Horizon League |
|---|---|
| Loudon Love | Loudon Love |
| Xavier Hill-Mais | Xavier Hill-Mais |
| JayQuan McCloud | JayQuan McCloud |
| Tyler Sharpe | Darius Quisenberry |
| Marcus Burk | Antoine Davis |
Both lists share three players, but I’m really interested in how the differences played out. To me, Sharpe was an automatic pick on the team because he was the one consistent star for a team that had a shot at the Horizon League Regular Season title during the regular season finale. He didn’t even make the official First Team. I have to imagine injuries split the votes for NKU. Dantez Walton was definitely the best player for the Norse early, but missed more than half of Horizon League play and wound up much lower on the list than he would’ve if healthy. Sharpe’s stats don’t stand up very well to Quisenberry’s, but his importance to his team over the course of the season is right on par.
I picked Burk over Davis because he managed to be a 20+ point per game scorer while also shooting the ball efficiently. If Davis shot the ball more like last year he would’ve been an obvious first team pick for me, and potentially would’ve had the chance to follow up his Preseason Player of the Year award with more postseason hardware if that added efficiency resulted in better standings for Detroit Mercy. I don’t have an issue with picking the league’s leading scorer by three points per game as All-League, particularly since he did accumulate some other nice counting stats. I just think Burk was a little closer to what we expected Davis to be, so he got the nod.
| HoriZone Roundtable | Horizon League |
|---|---|
| Bill Wampler | Bill Wampler |
| Te’jon Lucas | Te’jon Lucas |
| Tarkus Ferguson | Tarkus Ferguson |
| Antoine Davis | Marcus Burk |
| Darius Quisenberry | Tyler Sharpe |
The only differences here are the guys we had on the First Team who the official voters dropped to Second Team. Our top ten players were all the same.
| HoriZone Roundtable | Horizon League |
|---|---|
| Algevon Eichelberger | Algevon Eichelberger |
| Amari Davis | Amari Davis |
| Dantez Walton | Dantez Walton |
| Tanner Holden | Cole Gentry |
| Jaylen Minnett | Jalen Tate |
I was a big fan of Jaylen Minnett despite his team’s lack of success, but I really have to give Horizon League voters credit on this one. Naming Jalen Tate Defensive Player of the Year, then turning around and making him an All-League pick is a good move. Particularly when you consider Tate missed as much time as Walton on the year. A quality offensive player who also wins Defensive Player of the Year is a strong All-League pick. Well done.
Our other point of difference on the third team was a matter of which Wright State starter you gave the nod as next best behind Love and Wampler. I went with the freshman Holden, the league went with the senior in Gentry. I’m fine with it, especially after watching a visibly frustrated Gentry go to the line in the closing seconds at Northern Kentucky on Friday and knock down a pair of free throws to ice the win for a team that looked poised to cough up a share of the Horizon League Title from the line.
Next, we’ll take a look at the All-Freshman Teams
| HoriZone Roundtable | Horizon League |
|---|---|
| Amari Davis | Amari Davis |
| Tanner Holden | Tanner Holden |
| Grant Basile | Grant Basile |
| Courtney Brown | CJ Wilbourn |
| Trey Calvin | Blake Lampman |
Once again, three players from the HoriZone Roundtable picks made the league’s official team. As a Milwaukee alum who watched more of the team than any other this season, I’m taking Brown over Wilbourn for the things he does that don’t appear on the stat sheet. His hustle creates a lot of scramble drills that led to easy extra possessions off of turnovers.
Calvin got the edge over Lampman on the HoriZone Roundtable team because he’s doing about as much for the league champion as Lampman is doing for the six-seed. Additionally, he’s doing it in far fewer minutes. I was surprised to see one of the freshmen on the regular season champion miss out in favor of a couple players who were roughly as productive as him on decidedly worse teams.
