The HoriZone Roundtable Post-Season All-#HLMBB Teams and Awards – 2025-26

It should come as no surprise that the race for an All-Horizon League spot was as tight as the races in the standings have been all season. Unlike the standings, though, where there was a clear victor at the close of the regular season, the candidates for nearly every spot for All-League, as well as individual awards, weren’t as clear.

Needless to say, that made certain choices by our voters very tough.

But choose they did, and with their task completed, we can now give you our picks for the Horizon League’s all-league teams, including Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Freshman of the Year (and All-Freshman team), Newcomer of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year (and All-Defensive team).

All-Horizon League First Team

Brody Robinson, Oakland (Player of the Year; Newcomer of the Year)
The UT Arlington transfer was a consistent force for the Grizz throughout the campaign, outpacing the entire league in assists while also finishing in the top five in scoring. Robinson proved himself every bit of the premier point guard Oakland head coach Greg Kampe expected from him, as he dropped double-digit dimes four times during the league campaign.

Corey Hadnot II, Purdue Fort Wayne
No player lived up to preseason expectations like former Horizon League Sixth Man of the Year Hadnot did. He topped the league in scoring with 21 points per game and was fifth in assists. When Mastodons head coach Jon Coffman needed an offensive boost, it was his veteran leader that he called upon. And Hadnot delivered frequently, and he dropped 30+ points twice during the conference stretch.

DeSean Goode, Robert Morris
As a member of the Horizon League All-Freshman team last season, Goode was already a known commodity, and the only question was how much he’d improve as a sophomore. And while his team changed, transferring from IU Indy to RMU in the off-season, the improvement that was expected of him was realized. Goode led the league in total rebounds, and he was sixth in scoring. Not only that, he was the conference’s most accurate shooter, leading all players in field goal percentage.

Donovan Oday, Northern Kentucky (Sixth Man of the Year)
You may be asking yourself how a guy who started so much was named as our Sixth Man of the Year, on top of being a first-team pick? Well, going by the way the conference rules these things, if a player starts less than half of the league games, they qualify. Taking that into account, it made Oday an easy choice for this award. He finished third in the league in scoring, and he was a terror defensively as well, averaging two steals per game.

Ryan Prather, Jr., Robert Morris
While the Horizon League tends to only pick players from the same team if that team won the championship, this is one trend that, thanks to our voters, we’re going to let slide, especially since he equaled his Colonials teammate DeSean Goode on the conference scoring charts. As well we should, especially since RMU’s lone returning scholarship player from last year’s NCAA Tournament team proved every much the lynchpin on yet another 20-win campaign for head coach Andy Toole. Prather finished also finished seventh in assists, with an impressive 3.7 assist-to-turnover ratio that was good enough for second overall in the league.

All-Horizon League Second Team

Cris Carroll, Youngstown State
The Penguins’ season was riddled with inconsistencies, leading to them ending up ninth in the standings. Carroll, however, was one of the most consistent pieces for YSU this season. His 18.3 points per game ranked him fourth in the league, and was also ranked in the top 20 in rebounding, grabbing 5.7 boards per contest.

TJ Burch, Wright State (Defensive Player of the Year)
Sargent’s commitment to defense at Wright State was clear throughout the season, and there was no better example of that than the sophomore transfer from Ball State. He excelled at making life miserable for opponent guards, as evidenced by leading the conference in steals. He was outstanding on the offensive side of the ball as well, finishing in the top 10 in assists and top 20 in scoring.

LJ Wells, Northern Kentucky
With a host of roster defections in the off-season, NKU head coach Darrin Horn relied on Wells to assumed the role of veteran leader and fill a huge void. And in that regard, he succeeded, finishing in the top 10 in scoring and sixth in total rebounds. His field goal percentage was also top five among his peers as well.

Orlando Lovejoy, Detroit Mercy
Mr. 313 lived up to his name, driving the Titans to heights not seen since the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. Lovejoy’s contributions on both sides of the ball were the impetus for UDM, especially late in the regular season, when it seemed as if he could score points at will. His 16.6 points per game put him slightly behind Goode and Prather in the top 10 in the league, while his 3.7 assists per game tied him for ninth with Burch.

Dayan Nessah, Cleveland State
Had it not been for a shoulder injury that put him out of the final games of the regular season, Nessah was poised to not only improve upon his own performance but also to lift the Vikings out of the funk they found themselves in during his absence. Alas, we’ll never know difference he would have made, but his 15.5 points and 6.5 boards per game were among the top 10 in the conference.

All-Horizon League Third Team

Kyler D’Augustino, IU Indy
The performance of individuals on lower-ranked teams tends to get overlooked on the official all-league teams (see Lovejoy, Orlando), and if that trend continues, a player like D’Augustino, who finished third behind Hadnot in conference scoring with 19.5 points per contest, could not make the cut. But his contributions to the Jaguars in what has essentially become a transition season for them cannot be denied. Following his West Liberty head coach Ben Howlett to Indianapolis should prove to be a good long-term decision for both of them, if this year is any indication.

Buru Naivalurua, Oakland
It wasn’t that our Preseason Player of the Year underperformed our expectations; far from it. He finished 15th in the conference with 14.5 points per game, tied for 11th in rebounding with 6.2 per game, and notched 1.2 blocks per contest, good enough for seventh. Even in this place in our all-league picks, Naivalurua remained one of the rocks in the Oakland lineup, coming through in clutch moments time and time again.

Michael Imariagbe, Wright State
The Raiders were, at their core, a youth movement. The lone exception was Imariagbe, experienced in the frontcourt, working his way up from Division III McMurry University into a mainstay of the Wright State lineup. His rebounding was a key component of the Raiders’ success, as his 6.6 boards ranked him eighth, right behind his freshman teammate Kellen Pickett (more on him later).

Isaac Garrett, Oakland
Had it not been for an injury that forced him out of the lineup for a few games, Garrett was on pace to have a season that our voters would have had to consider for Player of the Year. While it took him a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things, he proved to be the perfect complement to Naivalurua, averaging 13.3 points per game and 7.6 boards, which put him fourth in the league.

CJ O’Hara, Green Bay
It feels weird that O’Hara is the lone Phoenix on our all-league teams. But, for some reason, that’s how the votes went this year. O’Hara does, however, represent one of the many catalysts to the Green Bay renaissance this season, and he’s got the stats to prove it. He finished 10th in the conference with 15.7 points per game and also ranked in the top 25 with 4.6 rebounds per contest.

Coach of the Year

Clint Sargent, Wright State
Coming into the 2025-26 campaign, there was no telling what the second-year head coach would do with a roster that was heavy on players that, compared to the rest of the league, were far less experienced and light on more senior leadership. As the season wore on, though, it was clear that Sargent had little trouble getting his young roster up to speed and as a result, put his Raider squad in a position to end up at the top of the heap, making him the youngest coach to win a regular-season title since 2014.
Others considered: Doug Gottlieb, Mark Montgomery

All-Freshman Team

Kellen Pickett, Wright State (Freshman of the Year)
Without a doubt, the Freshman of the Year race was the closest it’s been in a long time. In the end, it came down to two players: Pickett and Detroit Mercy’s Tyler Spratt. This was a tough decision, to be sure, but the 6-9 forward from Fort Wayne edged out the 6-5 sharpshooter by the slimmest of margins, with the advantage going to Pickett on the boards, as well as on defense, where he finished second in the league in blocked shots.

Tyler Spratt, Detroit Mercy
Stevie Elam, Milwaukee
Michael Cooper, Wright State
Darius Livingston, Robert Morris

All-Defensive Team

TJ Burch, Wright State
Tae Dozier, Northern Kentucky
Nikos Chitikoudis, Robert Morris
LJ Wells, Northern Kentucky
Orlando Lovejoy, Detroit Mercy