The current landscape of collegiate athletics essentially dictates that in a conference like the Horizon League, the best players now probably won’t be the best players the next year, primarily because of all the transfers. The Horizon League continues to be no exception.
But what’s also true is that the holdovers from the previous year, all of whom were on the cusp of the all-league teams, will make their way to those accolades eventually. And this, too, is true for our preseason All-Horizon League teams.
However, in our case, we had two exceptions to those rules, with one of those being a very recent returnee. Ironically, both will be on the same team this time around.
Green Bay’s Marcus Hall, who was a preseason first team selection for us last year, is our pick for Player of the Year for this upcoming campaign. He’s joined on the first team by last year’s Freshman of the Year Kellen Pickett, Hall’s former teammate CJ O’Hara (who will now be Pickett’s teammate at Wright State), the other preseason first-teamer from last year, Orlando Lovejoy (who will now be playing with Hall), and Ace Valentine of Robert Morris.
The second team is made up primarily of the aforementioned holdovers from last season, led by Robert Morris’ All-Freshman guard Darius Livingston. He’s joined by Milwaukee’s Danilo Jovanovich, fellow All-Freshman teamer Tyler Spratt of Detroit Mercy and Purdue Fort Wayne’s DeAndrea Craig. One new face, Oakland’s Belal Al Shakery, makes his way to the second team as well.
Rounding out our third team is Milwaukee’s Chandler Jackson, along with Uzziah Bunton of Northern Illinois, Ayden Carter from Detroit Mercy, former Horizon League Freshman of the Year David Douglas, Jr., who will also play for NIU, and Northern Kentucky’s Ethan Elliott.
First Team
Marcus Hall*, F, Green Bay
Kellen Pickett, F, Wright State
CJ O’Hara, G, Wright State
Orlando Lovejoy, G, Green Bay
Ace Valentine, G, Robert Morris
*Player of the Year
When Marcus Hall announced that he was returning to Green Bay for his senior year, Phoenix fans were overjoyed. As he was already considered one of the best returning players in the league a year ago, the expectations are even higher for him this season. His 13.9 points per game mirror that of the 2024-25 campaign, but he upped his rebounding year-over-year, grabbing 5.2 boards per contest, a full one rebound more, on average, than the previous year.
One of the keys to Wright State’s success in 2025-26 was the play of the freshmen, the prime example being Kellen Pickett. His performance late in the season, which contributed to the Raiders winning the regular season and conference tournament crowns, belied his season-wide average of 8.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. With him being a focal point of the Wright State attack for an entire year, he’ll certainly play more than the 22.7 minutes per game he clocked last season, which is almost certain to boost his overall productivity.
When CJ O’Hara announced his entry into the transfer portal, few expected him to remain in the Horizon League. Instead, the all-Horizon League third team selection surprised nearly everyone by joining Pickett at Wright State, giving the Raiders yet another weapon in their already-impressive arsenal. With O’Hara, Wright State gets a guard that averaged 14.1 points and 4.4 rebounds per contest, not to mention a defensive intensity that should help fill the shoes left by Defensive Player of the Year TJ Burch, who transferred in the off-season.
Also coming as a surprise to everyone was Orlando Lovejoy’s intention to play another year in college. But here we are, and courtesy of a court ruling in Kentucky, All-Horizon League first team selection is back for another year. Since Detroit Mercy’s roster is full, Lovejoy had to seek another home, and he found it in the familiar surroundings of the HL in Green Bay. The only question will be how quickly he acclimates to the Phoenix rotation. The other question now goes back to eligibility, as the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the NCAA and, as a result, renders Lovejoy a spectator.
One of the recent trends in the Horizon League during the transfer portal era is to identify the player that we expect to have the most impact. That’s no small feat given how many incoming players there are every year. For this season, though, Ace Valentine, the UMBC transfer that’s now at Robert Morris, is the most widely-regarded. A second-team All-America East selection in 2025-26, Valentine will look to expound on his 11.9 points per game performance from a year ago. He also comes in after averaging 4.1 boards and an impressive 3.9 assists per contest as well.
Second Team
Darius Livingston, G, Robert Morris
Danilo Jovanovich, F, Milwaukee
Tyler Spratt, G, Detroit Mercy
DeAndre Craig, G, Purdue Fort Wayne
Belal El Shakery, F, Oakland
Like Pickett, Darius Livingston put together a campaign that brought along Horizon League All-Freshman team accolades, and deservedly so, as he assumed more time in the backcourt due to injuries and never let up. His sophomore campaign is expected to be more of the same, only this time with Livingston poised to do even more damage, especially with Valentine and fellow RMU holdover Ta’Zir Smith alongside him.
When healthy, Danilo Jovanovich has been a big part of Milwaukee’s success, averaging 12.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game last year. However, like so many of his teammates last season, the injury bug hit him pretty hard, limiting him to 17 games. With a clean slate, though, the sky should be the limit for the 6-9 forward, and coach Bart Lundy will be relying on him this season more than ever as one of the veteran leaders.
After transferring from Cleveland State after redshirting and given Mark Montgomery’s eye for freshman talent, it was little surprise that Tyler Spratt excelled in the Detroit Mercy backcourt last season, earning All-Freshman team honors alongside Pickett and Livingston. Even with the Titans ineligible for postseason play because of the APR ban, Spratt is still expected to provide a spark and better his 9.9 points and 3.6 rebounds per game average that he notched in 2025-26.
There was some speculation that DeAndre Craig would seek out new opportunities in the transfer portal. In the end, though, the senior guard opted to stay put, and coach Jon Coffman will look for him to be the lynchpin of his offense. It’s easy to see why there’s that expectation. Last year, Craig provided the Mastodons with 14.0 points, 3.3 boards and 2.6 assists per game. There’s little doubt that he’ll look to meet or exceed those levels of productivity in the coming campaign.
In years past, Oakland head coach Greg Kampe has relied upon a certain type of forward to pace his team on the floor. The last two years, that’s been Buru Naivalurua. With the Aussie graduated, Kampe sought out a similar player. And it looks like he’s found that in Belal El Shakery. His offensive output last year at New Hampshire, 11.4 points per contest, was attractive enough. But his rebounding was even more eye-catching, as he cleaned up 8.2 boards per game. With Kampe starting over in the frontcourt, El Shakery should be the ideal piece for the Golden Grizzlies up front.
Third Team
Chandler Jackson, F, Milwaukee
Uzziah Buntyn, G, Northern Illinois
Ayden Carter, G, Detroit Mercy
David Douglas, Jr., F, Northern Illinois
Ethan Elliott, G, Northern Kentucky
When injuries plagued Milwaukee, one of the silver linings late in the season was the emergence of Chandler Jackson. The 9.7 points per game overall belied his growing presence late in the campaign, which included him leading the Panthers in scoring on four occasions, capped by a 25-point performance against IU Indy. The expectation this year for Jackson will be to carry over his late-season performance into the upcoming games.
Northern Illinois’ roster makeup is essentially a 50-50 split between D2 transfers and D1 transfers. One of the most notable players coming from the Division I ranks for new head coach Matt Majkrzak is Uzziah Buntyn. Last year, he was a critical part of the South Dakota rotation, dropping 12.1 points, dishing out 3.5 assists and snagging 1.3 steals per game. He’ll be called upon to make the Huskies’ transition into the Horizon League as smooth as possible.
Even among Detroit Mercy’s star power from a season ago, Ayden Carter still found himself as a key piece of the lineup. However, an injury cut his campaign short, leaving Titans fans to wonder if the team, which made it to the Horizon League Tournament finals, could have been even better with him in the rotation. Carter has returned for this year, but of course with the spectre of the APR falling upon the squad. That’s not to say, though, that he won’t be eager to pick up where he left off, as he averaged 12.2 points and 4.3 rebounds in the nine games he played before his injury.
As Horizon League coaches know, the ideal player to find in the transfer portal is one that already knows the league pretty well. This eventuality we have come to refer to as a Horizon-on-Horizon crime. And while we have some direct examples of that happening in the off-season (most notably the aforementioned Lovejoy), sometimes it’s a player that used to play in the conference returning after time away from the league. That’s the case for David Douglas, Jr., who won Horizon League Freshman of the Year in 2023-24 before spending the last two seasons at Fresno State. With his time on the West Coast behind him, Douglas returns closer to home and to a league he’s familiar with, the latter of which Majkrzak will be banking on to help the Huskies progress.
Without a doubt, Northern Kentucky’s primary distributor last year was freshman Ethan Elliott. And he did not disappoint in that role, as his 4.6 assists per game were fourth in the Horizon League and his 3.3 assists-to-turnover ratio placed him third among his conference peers. With key scoring pieces from 2025-26 moving on, Elliott will likely be called upon to produce as much on that end as he has been on the passing side, meaning he’ll look to better his 5.1 points per contest from the year before.
Bonus
With the recent ruling that rendered the Kentucky 5-for-5 group of players ineligible again, Lovejoy, as previously mentioned, may be have been selected as a preseason All-League team member. But, of course, if he’s ruled as permanently ineligible, that means our All-League teams need to change a bit. For starters, Darius Livingston would be bumped up to the first team, and Chandler Jackson would be moved to the second team.
That would also leave the last spot on the third team unfilled. In this scenario, we’d fill that place with not one, but two players, because we happen to have a tie there. It’s between Wright State’s Dominic Pangonis, who played a pivotal role in the Raiders’ championship campaign last season, and Northern Kentucky’s Noah Pagotto, the Australian who joins the Norse by way of East Texas A&M.
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