Yesterday, we announced the HoriZone Roundtable picks for the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Postseason Awards. Naturally, that means today we’re ready with our First, Second and Third Team All-Horizon League picks.
With some of our Preseason All-League picks like Darius Quisenberry, Rashad Williams and Al Eichelberger battling injuries throughout the season, there was plenty of unexpected room to slide into the top two All-League teams. With the addition of two more Horizon League schools, we opted to follow last year’s lead and select a Third Team for the postseason.
Take a look at our team’s 2021 Horizon League Men’s Basketball All-League selections:
First Team All-Horizon League
| Player | School | Notable Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Loudon Love | Wright State | 17.4 PPG, 9.9 RPG |
| Antoine Davis | Detroit Mercy | 24.5 PPG, 5.1 APG 3.1 RPG |
| Marcus Burk | IUPUI | 22.5 PPG, 3.8 RPG |
| Jalen Moore | Oakland | 18.3 PPG, 9.5 APG, 4.2 RPG |
| Naz Bohannon | Youngstown State | 16.5 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 3.0 APG |
Love was our Horizon League Player of the Year pick after a dominant end to the season unquestionably elevated him above Tanner Holden as the standout for a Wright State team that tied for a share of the regular season crown. From there, our voters picked the best player on the best team over Antoine Davis and his gaudy scoring totals on 10-6 Detroit Mercy.
Davis narrowly missed on Player of the Year honors after shooting a ridiculous 40.1 percent from beyond the 3-point arc on a high volume of shots. After an 0-4 start to league play where Davis shot just 33.8 percent from the field, the Titans went on a two week mental health break related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon the team’s return, Davis bounced back beautifully from the rough start to lead the team to a 10-2 record down the stretch.
IUPUI star Marcus Burk led the Jaguars to a 7-9 record in Horizon League play a year after the team finished in a distant last place a year ago. Not to let Antoine Davis outdo him as a shooter, Burk shot 42.9 percent from beyond the arc. Despite COVID-19 wiping out enough league games that the Jaguars played less league games than last year in spite of an expanded schedule, Burk was the key component in IUPUI more than doubling its Horizon League win total in 2021.
Jalen Moore finished his first season at Oakland as exactly the floor general Greg Kampe was missing a year ago. Moore’s assist total isn’t just first in the Horizon League, it’s first by almost four assists per game. The 3.7 assist per game gap between Moore and Te’Jon Lucas’ 5.8 would be the ninth best assist per game total of a Horizon League player. That would likely be enough to make Kampe happy, but Moore is also third in the league in scoring even after a recent shooting slump.
After two seasons of being one of the first players out on our Preseason and Postseason All-League votes, Bohannon comfortably makes the first team. With Preseason First Team All-League pick Darius Quisenberry hindered by an injury, Bohannon stepped into the role of go-to-guy very well. He had just three 20-point performances in his first three seasons at YSU, but eclipsed the mark eight times in 20 Horizon League contests as a senior.
Second Team All-Horizon League
| Player | School | Notable Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Tanner Holden | Wright State | 16.4 PPG, 7.2 RPG |
| Amari Davis | Green Bay | 18.0 PPG, 3.7 RPG |
| Torrey Patton | Cleveland State | 15.3 PPG, 7.5 RPG |
| Grant Basile | Wright State | 14.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG |
| Trevon Faulkner | Northern Kentucky | 16.3 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 2.3 APG |
Tanner Holden was Wright State’s leading scorer by a comfortable margin for much of the year until Loudon Love’s late season surge. While that was going on, Holden’s shooting slumped and he had a couple single-digit scoring performances. With a strong field of All-League contenders, all it takes is a few weeks of play that aren’t up to par to knock a player out of Player of the Year contention. With that said, our preseason prediction of Holden as a breakout player looks pretty good right now.
One thing that might get lost when you look at Amari Davis’ season is that changing coaches from Linc Darner and his uptempo style to Bo Ryan’s son and his…more Bo Ryan-esque tempo means that Davis’ counting stats aren’t what they would’ve been last year. Nonetheless Davis upped his scoring, assists, and steals while seeing only a slight decline in rebounds. Obviously his per possession stats are even more improved. Adding a 3-point shot that’s at least passable enough that defenders need to get a hand in his face allowed him to increase his overall effective field goal percentage despite his shooting from inside the arc decreasing from last year. While Green Bay’s breakout star was obviously P.J. Pipes, Amari Davis’ improved counting statistics despite the much slower pace still have us feeling alright with our pick as well.
Torrey Patton was one of the more consistent players on both sides of the ball in the Horizon League this year. The senior forward rarely jumped off of the page, but reached double figures in 18 of 20 Horizon League games for the Vikings. He was also selected as our pick for Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year. With quiet but stellar performances on a near-nightly basis, Patton feels like the embodiment of a Cleveland State team that many can’t explain as Horizon League Champion.
Under normal circumstances it’d be difficult to justify having Grant Basile give one of the league’s co-champions the Player of the Year and two Second Team All-League players while the other co-champ has just one second teamer, but clearly this wasn’t a normal season. Cleveland State and Wright State took dramatically different approaches this year, with the Vikings regularly going 12 or even 14-deep in the rotation while the Raiders frequently used just two bench players. The result for WSU is that a player like Basile can earn All-League honors after coming off the bench for six of the team’s first seven games. Like his teammate Holden, Basile is a 2020 All-Freshman team pick that clearly lived up to his breakout player potential.
Trevon Faulkner came into the year with high expectations from our staff following the graduation of 2020 All-League picks Tyler Sharpe, Dantez Walton and Jalen Tate. While he couldn’t improve his shooting, he still very much lived up to those expectations by being a reliable scorer for the Norse while contributing in other areas of the game. He finished the year twelfth in scoring, and despite being just 6-foot-3 finished sixteenth in rebounding.
Third Team All-Horizon League
| Player | School | Notable Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Jarred Godfrey | Purdue Fort Wayne | 16.6 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 3.5 APG |
| Teyvion Kirk | UIC | 15.1 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 4.9 APG |
| Daniel Oladapo | Oakland | 15.1 PPG, 10.3 RPG |
| Marques Warrick | Northern Kentucky | 17.5 PPG, 55.7 EFG% |
| A.J. Bramah | Robert Morris | 21.8 PPG, 11.4 RPG |
During the first half of the season, it looked like Jarred Godfrey was destined for a First Team All-League selection. Then both he and Purdue Fort Wayne saw their seasons change dramatically. The 20-point performances for Godfrey and the wins for PFW that were regular occurrences in the first half of the year became far more rare down the stretch.
Given that he’d already been a productive player at Ohio, Teyvion Kirk’s instant success in the Horizon League is something that was definitely predictable. Kirk wasn’t always the best shooter and his scoring total wound up sixteenth in the league, but he more than made up for it with an assist total good for fifth in Horizon League play and rebounding numbers that snuck him into the league’s Top 10.
Despite being undersized, Daniel Oladapo established himself as one of the premier frontcourt players in the Horizon League. He finished the regular season as the one of two players to average a double-double in league play, with Player of the Year Loudon Love missing out on being a third by 0.1 rebounds per game. Oladapo put up some absolutely insane rebounding totals, getting at least 18 rebounds on four separate occasions in league play. Clearly, the departures of Xavier Hill-Mais and Brad Brechting created the opportunity for Oladapo to be a breakout star.
We’ve known Marques Warrick was going to be the Freshman of the Year for a long time. Now, he’s officially posted a season good enough to earn honors that aren’t reserved for players fresh out of high school. Warrick finished the year fifth in the Horizon League in scoring while maintaining a high level of efficiency and continuing to improve as the season went on. Something tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of Mr. Warrick on these lists going forward.
Had he finished out the year with RMU and produced at a similar level, A.J. Bramah very well might have pushed Naz Bohannon off of the top All-League team. Instead, he became one of the more divisive All-League candidates. Some graded him on the performances we saw. Others docked him for playing just 11 Horizon League games. Others decided that since he was no longer a Horizon League player they wouldn’t include him at all. In the end, he sneaks into the last spot on the third All-League team.
