HoriZone Roundtable

Vikings primed for another successful season On January 22nd, Cleveland State stood at 2-7 following a nine-point defeat to Green Bay. And while the Vikings'...

Williams tabbed to win fourth Player of the Year honor To the surprise of absolutely nobody who has watched Horizon League women's basketball over the...

IUPUI is the consensus favorite to win their second Horizon League championship in the last three seasons, according to a poll of the HoriZone...

For the second year in a row, I'm picking players who could make up an All-Newcomer team if the Horizon League still had one. My picks last year were a mixed bag. Jalen Moore was the obvious standout; he led the nation in assists on his way to being a First Team All-League pick and unanimous selection to the HoriZone Roundtable All-League team. Teyvion Kirk earned a spot on our All-League team as well, while D'Moi Hodge put up a good enough season that we've got All-League expectations for him in year two. Despite prior Division I success, Taurean Thompson and Carlos Hines didn't pan out in the league. On the flipside, Marques Warrick proved me wrong and earned All-League honors as a freshman, Bul Kuol stayed healthy and had a massive breakout season as a fifth year senior, and DeAndre Gholston went from being the third leading scorer on a stacked Junior College team to an All-League caliber player for Milwaukee. On paper this year's top contenders look even stronger than last year's, which nearly produced an entire lineup of All-League picks. The league's highest rated high school commitment of all time is joined by two 2021 All-NEC picks and three Power Conference transfers who have averaged double-digit scoring in the past. Without even considering Junior College recruits and under-the-radar freshmen poised to be this year's Amari Davis or Marques Warrick, there are more potential All-League newcomers than there are spots in the lineup. After two years of writing articles about the lack of newcomers on All-League teams our voters finally came through and put a pair of the players listed below on our All-League team, and I still have to wonder if we've missed some obvious candidates. Here’s a look at who would be the early season favorites for an All-Newcomer team if it still existed:

Before we get going, I'm not going to commit to this being a yearly thing going forward. Picking Horizon League Preseason Awards is going to quickly turn into a mess, and the only reason I'm doing it this year is that a number of the choices are either already voted on or extremely obvious. Others are really strange to try to pick, and I'm not going to try to run off our writers by asking them to vote in this nonsense. So with that disclaimer out of the way, here are the HoriZone Roundtable Preseason Men's Basketball awards picks:

Antoine Davis is the HoriZone Roundtable pick to win Horizon League Player of the Year in a poll of our writers and podcast staff. The senior finished 2021 second in the nation in scoring with 24.0 points per game. He's joined on the first team by returning All-League players Torrey Patton, Jalen Moore and Grant Basile as well as highly touted freshman Patrick Baldwin Jr. The rest of the returning 2021 All-League picks DASH Wright State's Tanner Holden, Northern Kentucky's Trevon Faulkner and Marques Warrick, and Purdue Fort Wayne's Jarred Godfrey DASH are joined by Milwaukee guard DeAndre Gholston on our second team. Holden is the lone player who wasn't a First Team selection to be unanimously selected to one of the top two teams on every ballot. After seeing only Patton selected All-League at the end of 2021, our projected 2022 Horizon League Champion Cleveland State is projected to have three players make the team this year as both Tre Gomillion and D'Moi Hodge were selected for the third team. Also earning Third Team Preseason honors are Youngstown State's Shemar Rathan-Mayes, UIC's Michael Diggins and Purdue Fort Wayne's Damian Chong-Qui. Chong Qui is the first player to be selected to the HoriZone Roundtable Preseason All-League team in his first year after transferring in.

Cleveland State has been selected to repeat as Horizon League champion in a poll of HoriZone Roundtable writers and podcast staff. The Vikings bring back virtually all of last season's rotation that shared the Horizon League Regular Season Title and won the league tournament, and the team added multiple players likely to be worked into prominent spots in the rotation. Fellow regular season co-champion Wright State was picked second despite the graduation of two-time Horizon League Player of the Year Loudon Love. The addition of five-star recruit Patrick Baldwin Jr. vaulted last year's eighth place finisher Milwaukee to third in the HoriZone Roundtable projections, narrowly beating out Detroit Mercy and its own Player of the Year candidate Antoine Davis. With all five starters returning and a host of promising newcomers, Northern Kentucky was picked for fifth. Oakland and 2021 All-Horizon League First Team guard Jalen Mooreround out the top half. Purdue Fort Wayne is another team projected to make a jump in 2022, thanks in part to the addition of former Mount Saint Mary's standout Damian Chong Qui. Youngstown State lost stars Naz Bohannon and Darius Quisenberry to the transfer portal but added a number of experienced college players, which proved enough to convince voters the Penguins aren't destined for the league's cellar. Last year's last-place finisher Robert Morris added multiple strong transfers and is projected to finish tenth in the school's second year in the Horizon League. Green Bay suffered massive roster turnover following Will Ryan's first season as coach, and is projected for eleventh. IUPUI wraps up the rankings following the departure of stars Marcus Burk Jaylen Minnett and Elyjah Goss.

I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with IUPUI living legend Macee Williams on Friday, and she ran down all things Jags for us,...