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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 3, 2020 18:13:20 GMT -5
The HL tournament gets underway tonight with three games. Cleveland State at Oakland, Milwaukee at Youngstown State, and IUPUI at UIC. All of the home teams are favored.
Any thoughts on who takes the conference title? Guess I will go with the odds and pick Wright State, the regular season conference champ.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2020 18:42:47 GMT -5
The HL tournament gets underway tonight with three games. Cleveland State at Oakland, Milwaukee at Youngstown State, and IUPUI at UIC. All of the home teams are favored. Any thoughts on who takes the conference title? Guess I will go with the odds and pick Wright State, the regular season conference champ. I'll stick with my original pick from before the season, Wright State. Based on how bad I did with the rest of my picks, Wright State probably doesn't have a chance 😁
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2020 22:04:39 GMT -5
Oakland (over Cleveland State), Y State (over Milwaukee) and UIC (over IUPUI) all win and advance tonight
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Post by ptctitan on Mar 4, 2020 6:08:07 GMT -5
Thank you Sam for starting this thread.
I pick Wright State because the Raiders have the best point guard in the league, Cole Gentry. Love should given Gentry his HLPOY award. Every other team remaining is capable enough to make it to the finals.
Normally, I'd pick UIC in next round; but, playing at Loyola neutralizes its home court advantage. YSU has not been good on the road. But will a neutral court offset the Penguins' road woes? This game is the likely upset of the two.
Brechting was out injured last night; but at GB, he likely wouldn't see many minutes against the smaller Phoenix. OU has not played well on the road; and, I see GB winning this game.
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 4, 2020 14:39:23 GMT -5
Thank you Sam for starting this thread. I pick Wright State because the Raiders have the best point guard in the league, Cole Gentry. Love should given Gentry his HLPOY award. Every other team remaining is capable enough to make it to the finals. Normally, I'd pick UIC in next round; but, playing at Loyola neutralizes its home court advantage. YSU has not been good on the road. But will a neutral court offset the Penguins' road woes? This game is the likely upset of the two. Brechting was out injured last night; but at GB, he likely wouldn't see many minutes against the smaller Phoenix. OU has not played well on the road; and, I see GB winning this game. Oakland is, though, playing quite well of late. I think Green Bay, OU, and Northern Kentucky are all capable of beating WSU, but you've gotta favor the Raiders.
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Post by ptctitan on Mar 9, 2020 19:59:48 GMT -5
UIC clobbers #1 seed Wright State 73-56.
Tarkus Ferguson had 25 points for UIC.
Bill Wampler had 14 points for WSU.
HL Player of the Year Loudon Love was held to 6 points and 9 rebounds. UIC's strategy was to play hack a Loudon. He was 2-7 from FT line. He was 2-6 from the field. But WSU as a team was 15-29 from the FT line. UIC was 11-15 from the line.
UIC outrebounded WSU 47-33.
The real question here is whether the double bye earned by WSU actually hurt them because they were rusty and UIC was more in flow having played 2 previous games in the tournament.
There looked to be just a few hundred fans watching.
This result is not good for the league because Wright State was clearly the league's best team during the regular season. But their shooting was rusty. Wampler was 5-18 including 3-8 from 3 point range. UIC went right at them and Love from the first play of the game to the end. WSU passing was unusually inefficient. WSU shot 28% for the game vs 45% for UIC.
I now fear that NKU may suffer the same fate later tonight and that there will be no chance for anything but a 16 seed for the HL.
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 9, 2020 20:24:13 GMT -5
Oddly, a 16 seed--with a play in game--could benefit the league. If you win the play in and then lose, you get two tournament shares. If you just start a 15 seed and lose, you get 1 tournament share.
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Post by ptctitan on Mar 10, 2020 6:00:50 GMT -5
Oddly, a 16 seed--with a play in game--could benefit the league. If you win the play in and then lose, you get two tournament shares. If you just start a 15 seed and lose, you get 1 tournament share. So, now we root for UIC to beat NKU and win the play-in at Dayton. $$$$$$$$$
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 10, 2020 7:31:55 GMT -5
Oddly, a 16 seed--with a play in game--could benefit the league. If you win the play in and then lose, you get two tournament shares. If you just start a 15 seed and lose, you get 1 tournament share. So, now we root for UIC to beat NKU and win the play-in at Dayton. $$$$$$$$$ Of course, right now Lunardi has NKU in the worst position--a 16th seed but without a play-in game.
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Post by JDetroitTitan on Mar 10, 2020 15:10:00 GMT -5
UIC's strategy was to play hack a Loudon. He was 2-7 from FT line. He was 2-6 from the field. But WSU as a team was 15-29 from the FT line. +1 Like the after game recap ptc
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 10, 2020 22:03:48 GMT -5
Attendance:
2020: Finals: 1861 Semi-Finals: 1923
2019: Finals: 5612 Semi-Finals: 5280
Remember all that bitching from fans around the league about holding the tournament in Detroit...
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 10, 2020 22:25:19 GMT -5
Attendance: 2020: Finals: 1861 Semi-Finals: 1923 2019: Finals: 5612 Semi-Finals: 5280 Remember all that bitching from fans around the league about holding the tournament in Detroit... Wow!
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Post by ptctitan on Mar 11, 2020 5:33:47 GMT -5
When the league does not put a good product on the floor and the "neutral tournament site" seems like an afterthought, you can't expect much better attendance. One big reason for choosing Indy was its proximity to Wright State and NKU. They were the pre-season favorites and the league wanted to cater to their fan bases after having the tourney in Detroit. The league makes more money from its deal with ESPN than it could ever make from two full houses at Indy. Or even two full houses at LCA. The funny thing about the telecast was that soon after Dakich touted how good last night's officials were, DJ Carstensen, rated the #18 official in the nation by KenPom, made a very HL-like call on what appeared to be a good block by Tarkus Ferguson coupled with the 2020 Mike Davis Memorial technical foul called against UIC player Jamie Ahale for exclaiming "Bullshit" after the call was made. That call changed the momentum and allowed NKU to push its lead to double-digits. The officials and their KenPom ratings were: Bo Boroski (#1); Paul Szelc (#9), and Carstensen (#18). So, it was a top-notch crew; but even they were affected by the negative karma of the HL. UIC went into one of their twilight zone runs during which they missed everything for about 6 straight minutes in the second half. A lot of lay-ups. They did the same thing at home last month when NKU blew them out on UIC's floor 73-43 on Feb 16th. NKU rotates well in their zone; but I think their success and that of CSU in the HL reflects a growing trend in all of college BB not to enforce the freedom of movement rules that were enacted in 2015. I remember listening to Ray McCallum back then when he thought these rules would open up the lane and cause higher scoring. But as the years have progressed, the refs have got rid of hand-checking, but they permit face guarding, grabbing and multiple player-cylinder violations by defenders. And they are permitting more and more slapping of the arms and wrists by defenders trying to reach and grab the ball. I don't like this direction in college hoops. There is no flow to more and more college games. The 30 second clock, the no-charge arc, and the longer 3-point line have not opened up the game. At the mid-major level, this makes most HL games unenjoyable to watch because the skill players are at a distinct disadvantage. There needs to be more balance. JMO.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 6:57:36 GMT -5
Attendance: 2020: Finals: 1861 Semi-Finals: 1923 2019: Finals: 5612 Semi-Finals: 5280 Remember all that bitching from fans around the league about holding the tournament in Detroit... Even taking into consideration the whole coronavirus thing which could have slightly reduced attendance, the numbers are still eye opening
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 11, 2020 8:46:06 GMT -5
Attendance: 2020: Finals: 1861 Semi-Finals: 1923 2019: Finals: 5612 Semi-Finals: 5280 Remember all that bitching from fans around the league about holding the tournament in Detroit... Even taking into consideration the whole coronavirus thing which could have slightly reduced attendance, the numbers are still eye opening It just seemed to me that if you went around the fanboards and twitter, for 4 years there was nothing but bitching by Horizon League fans about what a stupid, awful choice Detroit was. Indianapolis? Barely a peep. But maybe both the lack of chatter about the choice of Indy, and the lack of attendance at games, just reflects the rapid decline of the league. People just seem to have stopped caring.
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