The last time the Cleveland State men’s basketball team took the court they fell to Illinois State in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) championship game. That game in March saw the Vikings shoot 41.7% from the field, 25% from three, and 68.4% from the free throw line. These stats were par for the course under head coach Daniyal Robinson. Recent years involved a lot of defense but not much scoring by CSU.

By Cole Hostetler, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable If you could sum up the last two seasons for the Detroit Mercy Titans women's basketball team in two words, you could use: momentum shift. If you take the first 15 games of the past two years (30 games) and add up the combined wins and losses, you get a record of 22-8, which includes two losses to Michigan State, one to Michigan, and one to Butler.

By Cole Hostetler, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable It’s safe to say that when we look at the history of all sports as we know them, it’s pretty clear that night-and-day turnarounds from one season to the next for a program or franchise are incredibly rare. Bringing a program from its lowest lows to its highest highs isn’t something that happens overnight.

The Jeff Hans era at NKU saw a season full of ups and downs, but with many positives that can be built upon heading into the 2025-2026 season. The Lady Norse finished the 2024-2025 campaign 11-21 overall and 8-12 in the Horizon League. Gone are stalwarts Halle Idowu and Macy Blevins, both accounting for most of the Lady Norse scoring. Blevins averaged 12.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.5 steals per game while Idowu averaged 12.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game.

The NKU men’s basketball had an up and down year last season compared to previous years in the Horizon League. They had a hard time finding their footing in January, where they lost six straight games with only one being within single digits. The Norse would then find their groove as they went 7-2 to end the regular season. That end was still not enough to get a first round bye in the Horizon League tournament.

Last season, Milwaukee found itself in an extremely unfamiliar position: last place. UWM has generally been a consistently-strong program and a postseason regular – including a 2020-21 campaign that saw a share of the Horizon League regular season title, and a demolition of Drake in the first round of the WNIT – so last place is about as acceptable in Cream City as Anheuser-Busch.

“Go ahead, pick us last, we don’t care.” Those were the words of Green Bay head coach Doug Gottlieb when asked about preseason polling from so-called experts who haven’t seen his team play. For the Phoenix, it’s a familiar position, overlooked, doubted, and left to prove themselves on the court. Last season was one the program would rather forget, at least in the standings.

The Wright State women's basketball team are looking to have a much better 2025-26 season than the one before, and some people think that Kari Hoffman – heading into her fifth year as the head coach – is on the hot seat. Following a successful 2023-24 campaign, Hoffman was given a contract extension through 2030 from then-Athletic Director Bob Grant right before he retired.

The 2024-25 season for the Wright State Raiders men's basketball team under Clint Sargent was definitely not one of the best; fans and critics would say that they underachieved more than they did in the 2023-24 season with Scott Nagy. Wright State finished with the nation’s sixth-best overall team field goal percentage (49.4 percent) and the 13th-best team three-point percentage (38.4 percent), but they also had the nation's 25th-worst opponent’s three-point percentage (36.6 percent) and were tied with Long Beach State for the nation’s 33rd-worst defensive efficiency (1.102).

With offensive star Katie Davidson (19 ppg, 4 rbg, 47% from 3) having departed for South Florida after last year's 9-21 campaign that ended abruptly with a home loss in the Horizon League tournament, the IU Indy women's basketball team returns five players from the 2024-25 roster. Junior guard Nevaeh Foster (10 ppg, 4 rbg, and 1 spg in 29 starts) is only returner who consistently contributed, but this may not be the full story with this team.

"Keep it chippy!" That was a directive that came from first-year IU Indianapolis men's basketball coach Ben Howlett a number of times in the team's third official practice. What does he mean by it? "If things get chippy," he says afterwards, "it gets a little more personal with these guys. So every now and then--I don't, like, encourage fighting or anything in practice--but sometimes our best practices are when they're trying to beat the other guy and make it personal with the guy they're guarding." …

For the first time in 12 seasons, the Oakland women’s basketball team has a fresh start ahead of the 2025-26 season with a new head coach at the helm: Keisha Newell. “It was an honor, a privilege to note that they saw fit in me to be the next leader of the program,” Newell said. The fresh start for Oakland comes after previous head coach Jeff Tungate’s…

In addition to the preseason picks and All-League teams, we have compiled a list of some additional preseason awards, given out to those we think will have the most impact during the upcoming season. Coach of the Year – Ethan Faulkner, Youngstown StateNow, conventional wisdom would dictate that this award go to the coach of the team picked at the top of the preseason poll, which is Milwaukee’s Bart Lundy.

Outside of the Player of the Year award and the all-conference teams, the Horizon League also selects several other individual awards at the end of each season. Here are our preseason picks to win those honors: Award Name School Coach of the Year Chandler McCabe Robert Morris Newcomer of the Year Bailey Kuhns Robert Morris Freshman of the Year

Well, it’s back to the drawing board. Between the HoriZone Roundtable and official Horizon League post-season accolades, only one player from any All-League team returns for consideration in the preseason teams this season, and while Detroit Mercy’s Orlando Lovejoy was highly considered for our preseason Player of the Year, it was another returnee, Oakland’s Buru Naivalurua, who was selected by the staff as our top player in one of the closest votes in HoriZone Roundtable history.

Maddy Skorupski had an outstanding case for the Horizon League’s Player of the Year award last season. As it was, she made the all-conference first team as a junior, thanks to finishing third in the HL in scoring (16.3), sixth in assists (3.1), and first in steals (2.8). The only thing that kept her from the league’s highest individual award was, arguably, her Oakland team’s 9-22 record.

Change is a constant. That’s been true in the Horizon League, especially in the advent of the era of the transfer portal and NIL. And every year, it’s a race to see which team can take advantage of its respective situation and rise to the top. And one of the teams that has been consistent in the previous three seasons is Milwaukee under the tutelage of Bart Lundy.

Projecting the Horizon League for the coming season is primarily an exercise in trust. After all, last year’s top three teams, Green Bay, Purdue Fort Wayne, and Cleveland State, were each battered by high-profile departures, whether through graduation or the transfer portal. So really, anyone attempting to place those schools for 2025-26 is first answering a fundamental question: how much do you trust the team’s coaching staff and established legacy to execute an instant rebuild?

Columnists We are seeking writers for each of the Horizon League’s member schools, as well as general assignment writers who are interested in covering any team. Candidates should be availabl…

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As is an annual tradition for the HoriZone Roundtable, Bob and Jim welcome various play-by-play voices from around the Horizon League to discuss their respective teams and other topics. Guest include: Dan Hasty, Detroit Mercy Greg Rakestraw, IU Indy Brady Laber, Northern Kentucky Chris Collins, Wright State Robb Schmidt, Youngstown State Subscribe: horizoneroundtable.com/subscribe Donate: horizoneoundtable.com/donate Patreon: patreon.com/horizoneroundtable