Rank | Team | Last Week | Change |
1. | Cleveland State | 1 | – |
2. | Milwaukee | 2 | +1 |
3. | Purdue Fort Wayne | 2 | -1 |
4. | Robert Morris | 4 | – |
5. | Youngstown State | 4 | – |
6. | Oakland | 5 | – |
7. | Wright State | 7 | – |
8. | Detroit Mercy | 10 | +2 |
9. | Northern Kentucky | 8 | -1 |
10. | IU Indy | 9 | -1 |
11. | Green Bay | 11 | – |
Cleveland State had one thing to do this week, but it was a pretty big thing. On Thursday, the Vikings had to go to Purdue Fort Wayne to face a Mastodon team that hadn’t lost at home the whole season. Moreover they had to do it on national television on ESPNU. Well, CSU made it happen again, keeping the fierce Purdue Fort Wayne backcourt pretty well contained, and limited the Mastodons, who had averaged 84 points per game, to a paltry 58 in yet another win. With the streak up to 13 games, the Vikings now prepare for a Wednesday road game against Northern Kentucky, where they can tie the 1985-86 and 1992-93 teams that won 14 straight.
Purdue Fort Wayne stays in the No. 2 spot because the Mastodons took their loss to CSU in stride, traveled up to Milwaukee, and beat a Panthers team that is also very tough to beat at come. While Jalen Jackson and Rasheed Bello were more or less contained by the Viking defense, both of them shined through against Milwaukee, with Bello finishing with 23 and Jackson with 22. In even better news for Purdue Fort Wayne, Eric Mulder is back in the lineup and is slowly but surely getting back into his rhythm. While still 2.5 games away from Cleveland State, the Mastodons will keep fighting to chip away at that.
The Purdue Fort Wayne game is one that Milwaukee really needed to win this week to stay within two games of CSU in the standings. But the Mastodons simply outlast the Panthers, and now they sit in this place both in the standings and the Power Rankings. Still, Milwaukee can make up some ground next week with IU Indy and a return match at Cleveland State in the offing.
We were really close to having Kam Woods being the hero for Robert Morris two weeks in a row, which would have boosted the Colonials in the Power Rankings. Wright State had other ideas, and denied RMU’s opportunity to stretch its win streak to seven games. As it stands, the Colonials more than proved they’re a forced to be reckoned with this week by decimating IU Indy by 53 points on Thursday. And regardless of falling to the Raiders, Robert Morris will still be tough to beat for the teams on that face the Colonials the rest of the season.
Youngstown State had the second-weirdest week in the Horizon League this week. First, the Penguins fought back from a 17-point deficit early in the second half to eke out a win against Wright State, with Juwan Maxey’s three the key to sealing that victory. For some reason, though, YSU had all kinds of problems against an IU Indy team that did have the weirdest week in the conference this week (more on that later). The loss denied the Penguins a chance to move up in the Power Rankings, hence the reason for no change this week.
What does Oakland do without Greg Kampe on the sidelines? That’s a question nobody’s had to ask since 2000. But after the Horizon League suspended him for the Green Bay game, we had to ask, and we got an answer: Win, apparently. True, this is only a really small sample size, the Golden Grizzlies kept the Phoenix winless in the league. When Kampe returned for the game against a struggling Northern Kentucky team, Oakland never seemed to have an answer for the Norse, and the Grizz missed an opportunity to move up the ranks.
Wright State‘s up-and-down campaign continues. The Raiders couldn’t keep Youngstown State contained, and their 17-point lead evaporated, and with it, a chance to take a critical road win. There is, though, something to be said for a little home cooking, because that seemed to get Wright State the edge it needed to squeeze out a win against red-hot Robert Morris, courtesy of an Andrew Welage basket with 11.6 seconds left and a big defensive stop in the paint when time expired.
For the first time in what it seems like a long time, playing at Calihan Hall against Detroit Mercy looks to be a rather daunting task once again. Northern Kentucky found out the hard way, which is why, in spite of the better conference record, the Norse is below the Titans in this week’s Power Rankings. Green Bay learned this lesson as well. Detroit Mercy does have a really tough contest at Moon Township against a hot Robert Morris team seeking revenge for the loss the Titans handed to them earlier this season. Still, double-digit wins and a possible first-round home game, two things that were unthinkable last year, are in sight.
At least Northern Kentucky’s losing streak is over. The Norse most of us expected to be a factor in the race at the top of the conference standings arrived in a big way at Oakland. Before that, though, NKU seemed powerless to stop whatever Detroit Mercy was doing on Thursday. Will the triumph over the Grizz be the turning point for the Norse? Well, they have a chance to deny Cleveland State a 14th-straight win in front of the home fans, and the Vikings have had some terrible luck at Truist Arena. So, Northern Kentucky could very well snap out of it.
Do you know what happened to IU Indy this week? Because I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. On Thursday, Robert Morris put the pounding of a lifetime on the Jaguars, 106-53. It’s the first time in Horizon League history that a team beat another conference team by more than 30 (IU Indy beat Detroit Mercy by 34 in early January), the lose to another conference team by more than 30. You’d think that Youngstown State would have run the Jags out of Zidian Family Arena on Saturday. You would have thought wrong. IU Indy held the Penguins at arm’s length and got a much-needed road win. Nothing makes sense anymore.
You have to think that Green Bay isn’t losing 19 in a row if Anthony Roy was in the lineup. As it stands, though, that’s there the Phoenix are at this point, with mid-February the current projected timeline for Roy’s return. But Roy hasn’t been the only one with injury issues. This week, it was Marcus Hall, who got hurt during the Cleveland State game, who was forced out of the Oakland game, allowing the Grizz to take advantage on the frontcourt. Hall returned, but it still wasn’t enough against Detroit Mercy at Calihan Hall, as the Titans prevailed.