HoriZone Roundtable

Following a regular season in which the Horizon League was able to successfully play over 90% of its scheduled league games while navigating the...

The first of two semifinal matchups in the Horizon League tournament featured the one seeded Cleveland State Vikings versus the nine seed Milwaukee Panthers....

Purdue Fort Wayne had a roller coaster of a season, finishing the year with an 8-15 record, and 6-14 in conference play. This was...

I already geeked out about the INSANE quarterfinal round the Horizon League had last week in Friday's Power Rankings, so I'll keep that to a minimum today...though they'll obviously be featured in the rules. The last time we played I severely underestimated how big of a part Dick Vitale would play in the ESPN broadcast. That combined with a Detroit Mercy upset of Cleveland State made for a pretty sloppy night. This week, we've got one matchup we've already seen on #HLMBBWTO between Milwaukee and Cleveland State plus a game between two teams we haven't seen at all on the nationally televised games. We'll be focusing on the OU-NKU game for a couple reasons. First, it's the late game, starting at 9:30 PM Eastern. Second, it features a pair of teams we haven't seen yet this season instead of two teams we've already seen on the specific network that's airing the semifinals. In the interest of not killing everyone, we'll focus on the game between Northern Kentucky and Oakland. With that said, if you're insane you can use the rules we played with for Milwaukee-CSU the first time.

The Horizon League's four quarterfinal games featured five total overtimes and one game that ended in regulation on a buzzer-beating putback. When the dust settled, top seed Cleveland State and seedline favorites Oakland and Northern Kentucky advanced; while odds-on favorite to win the tournament Wright State was stunned by 8-seed Milwaukee. While we've usually tried to have write-ups done by the people who actually picked each team, the way the tournament shook out was too perfect. The four members of the site to appear most frequently on the podcast are alumni of the four remaining teams vying for the automatic bid. Bob, Matt, Kyle and John are joined in the predictions by Alec Kwait, Marc Weems and Horizon Boy. In today's picks, there was one overwhelming favorite and one game that might've ended with an even split in predictions if not for an odd number of voters.

A week after giving Green Bay the top spot in the Power Rankings, the Phoenix following a surprise loss at home against eight seed Cleveland State. As a result, Wright State retains a spot it held from the time it overtook Milwaukee in the standings until last week. The Raiders made easy work of Northern Kentucky, a team that hasn't defeated WSU since 1986. The other impact that CSU's upset had was to allow it to jump the Panthers based on recent play. Wright State remained in the rankings on the men's side due to a potential NIT at-large berth. On the women's side, IUPUI and potentially Milwaukee could remain in the rankings with a loss. The Jaguars are currently ranked number 51 in the NET rankings while Milwaukee is ranked 75.

In what was one of the most exhilarating games in all of college basketball this season, let alone the Horizon League, the Cleveland State...

One word has described Raider Nation for the last couple of hours, and that is “pain”. We were riding high through the first 34 minutes. Hell, I even moved the game over to my laptop to put Detroit Mercy and Northern Kentucky on the TV. I thought it was over; we had a 99.9% chance to win via ESPN. How quickly did I forget that this month can be both beautiful and a bitch at the same time. It started out beautifully. The Raiders went on a 7-0 run answering the opening points from Milwaukee. At the next stoppage, they would stretch that out to double digits at 23-12. Wright State continued to grow it, leading by as much as 21. They would be up 44-26 at the break.