HoriZone Roundtable

Will Ryan — son of former Wisconsin and Milwaukee Head Coach Bo — will be asked to perform a near-complete rebuild. The Phoenix have three returning players with significant Division I experience, and only two of them played for Green Bay. Fortunately for the Phoenix, Ryan is experienced in this area. Wheeling had just five players on the roster when he took the job there, and he was able to put together a team that nearly finished .500 in a very short span of time.

The 2020-2021 Detroit Titans have a totally different team than when the team last played in 2020. After five players transferred out and seven new players joined the team, it seems like Detroit Mercy might finally have the pieces around Antoine Davis to make things interesting in the Horizon League. Justin Miller — the team's lone graduated senior — is also the only double-digit scorer that the Titans will need to replace this year. A highly-touted incoming power conference graduate transfer seems more than up to the task. Three other Division I transfers — plus a fourth pending a waiver for immediate eligibility — give the team a veteran core that could be a big step up from what we've seen under Mike Davis so far if this strange season gives them time to jell.

With the sub-.500 year behind them and a new home to settle into, the Mastodons are looking to make an impression on their new Horizon League foes. However, there are several unknowns for Coffman and his Purdue Fort Wayne squad coming into the 2020-21 season.

The Panthers bring back 4 starters from the end of the season, but clearly the end of the season didn't instill much confidence about that lineup in voters' minds. The biggest question about Milwaukee's potential this season seems to be finding another go-to scorer to replace Darius Roy. All-League guard Te'Jon Lucas can be relied on to produce on offense most nights, but Josh Thomas is the only other returning player who consistently hit double-figures last year and he never broke 20 points in a game.

In a strange way, a year full of uncertainty looks like it actually provided some stability for IUPUI. After it initially looked like a search was underway for Byron Rimm's replacement, the athletic department opted to keep him for another year. Focus then shifted to a number of talented upperclassmen who seemed likely to have bigger opportunities available to them, but most opted to stay put. Of the team's four 2020 starters with eligibility remaining, three opted to stay with the team. Jalen Minnett, Marcus Burk and Elyjah Goss will all exhaust their eligibility at IUPUI. Better yet for the Jaguars, the three returning starters were the team's three leading scorers and included every player to be honored with a Horizon League Postseason award. Losing pass-first point guard Grant Weatherford creates a pretty significant question mark for the team, but with so many players that would seem appealing to stronger teams on the roster it's far from the worst-case scenario.

This morning, the HoriZone Roundtable Preseason All-Horizon League Teams were released. While we selected just two All-League teams, the additions of Purdue Fort Wayne and Robert Morris bring the Horizon League to 12 teams and could make the 2020 decision to add a third All-League team permanent. If that's the case, we clearly missed five players who will earn All-League honors. Even if it's not the case, transfers are regularly overlooked when determining Preseason All-League teams. In either case, there are several players who clearly have the pedigree of previous All-League picks who failed to garner much interest for our 10-player list. Here are several of the strongest candidates:

Returning Horizon League Player of the Year Loudon Love has been selected as the HoriZone Roundtable's preseason pick to win the award again in 2021 in a poll of our writers and podcast staff. The senior led 2020 regular season champion Wright State with 15.9 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.

For the second season in a row, Wright State is the HoriZone Roundtable's overwhelming favorite to win the league. The defending regular season Horizon League champion won the league by two games last year, and suffered less roster turnover than its three biggest competitors.