Cleveland State has been voted to the top spot in the Under Armour #HLWBB Preseason Poll, the Horizon League announced on Wednesday afternoon. The annual survey includes the conference’s 11 head coaches, seven of whom chose the Vikings as the league’s best team.
The Vikings and Green Bay were the overwhelming favorites in the voting, appropriate given that the two schools have split the HL titles in each of the last two years and return with the cores of their rosters intact for 2024-25. The Phoenix received the other four first-place votes in the poll, while all 11 ballots featured CSU and GB in the top two spots.
In addition to the first place nod, several CSU players were chosen for individual awards, headlined by senior guard Colbi Maplesā selection as the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year.
Cleveland State has enjoyed something of a stranglehold on the conferenceās signature individual accolade of late, a streak that began when Destiny Leo won the HLās postseason Player of the Year award in 2022-23. Leo then followed up with a preseason nod last year, before Maples took over as the most recent postseason Player of the Year, and the 2024-25 preseason honor has now been added to the run.
The dynamic point guard from Earle, AR finished the 2023-24 campaign third in the conference in both point scoring (16.6 per game) and assists (3.3 per game), and was eighth in steals (1.8 per game) as well, with the latter number contributing to a spot on the HLās All-Defensive Team alongside the obvious spot in the first all-conference quintet.
Unsurprisingly, Maples was joined on the preseason All-Horizon League first team by Mickayla Perdue, as the two players have been nearly inseparable on the court, off the court, or within lists of conference award winners.Ā Perdue was named the conferenceās Newcomer of the Year last season, thanks largely to her 17.3 points per game, which ranked second in the HL. The Springfield, OH product reached that total largely through the deep ball, as her 2.4 made threes per game (including six and seven in contests nine days apart against Oakland and Green Bay) led the league by a wide margin.
Leo was also chosen to the preseason first team, as the HL coaches project a return to form for one of mid-major basketball’s best players following an ACL tear that wiped out most of her 2023-24 season. Prior to the injury, Leo was off to arguably the best start of her career, including 20.7 points per game and a spotless 40-for-40 mark from the free throw line. In 2022-23, when she was the postseason Player of the Year and led the Vikings to the school’s third-ever NCAA Tournament bid, Leo averaged a league-best 17.9 points per game.
The preseason honors follow up a massive postseason awards haul for the Vikings back in March. In addition to the accolades won by Maples and Perdue after leading CSU to its first Horizon League regular season championship, Chris Kielsmeier was the HLās Coach of the Year, while wing Carmen Villalobos earned Defensive Player of the Year honors.
