Commissioner's 2015-16 Team Previews

[wh]

by Commissioner » Fri Sep 11, 2015 8:43 am

In this thread I'll put up my 2015-16 Horizon team previews. We'll go alphabetically (except saving the Titans for last), with one every week or so until the season opens on November 13.

We start with Cleveland State:

Cleveland State
2015
19-15 Overall
11-5 Conference (3rd T)
RPI #128
Lost CIT Second Round
Returns 21.7% of scoring
Returns 27.9% of rebounding

Poor Gary Waters. In March of 2013 he could envision a 2015-16 Cleveland State squad featuring Trey Lewis, Anton Grady, Bryn Forbes, and Junior Lomomba. That team would be the favorite for a Horizon League title, with a chance to make a deep run in the NCAAs. Instead, those four will be playing in 2016 for, respectively, Louisville, Wichita State, Michigan State, and Providence.

Lomomba left after the 2013 season, Forbes the next year, and finally Lewis and Grady, First Team All Horizon players last year as redshirt juniors, succumbed to the lure of high majors this spring. To add insult to injury, Kaza Keane, who started 20 games last year, also decided to transfer this summer, returning to his native Canada.

What we're seeing with CSU is part of the ongoing destruction of mid-major basketball as a force in the NCAA. The high majors won't play mid-majors on the road, and in fact, they won't even play them at neutral sites. (The NCAA could require that exempt tournament games be played at neutral sites, or be actual tournaments, but it won't). Now the stigma is totally off transferring, and the stigma is also totally off raiding lower ranked teams' rosters for transfers. Mid-majors are being converted into a minor league system for high-majors.

From now on, when the mid-major gets that rare gem of a player, it should plan on losing that gem. The mid-major that convinces a local star to stay local, nabs the four-star recruit who likes the idea of building the program, or otherwise gets a top 250 player, will find that despite a commitment, the player is relentlessly wooed by the bigs. It is already harder than ever for a mid-major to get that player in the first place, due to the rise of national recruiting and the AAU circuits, as well as twitter and recruiting sites that are constantly telling that player "you can do better." But now it continues even after the player is signed, and even if he is otherwise happy. The player who blossoms late will be snatched away by the high major. The skinny 6-11 center with poor footwork that the mid-major took a chance on and red-shirted for a year, and who then becomes a star, will leave after his redshirt junior year to play immediately at a high major. Mid-majors not only have to recruit new players – they now have to recruit their own guys, and do so with the same disadvantages they had when they first managed to get the commitment. To sneak a player away from, say, Michigan, the Titans will have to out-recruit Michigan for him not just once, but year after year for four to five years. I don't see any way of stopping this except a heavy dose of NCAA paternalism that will often be unfair to the athletes and probably wouldn't work anyway.

Meanwhile, the window of opportunity to climb from the ranks of mid to high majors has just about closed. The era of high major conference expansion is ending. The ACC has 15 teams; the Big 10 and SEC have 14, as does the A10, which barely hangs on as an important basketball conference. There just aren't many spots available. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s Detroit mattered; in the 70s, 80s, and 90s it had chances to stay in a top tier conference, or at least something reasonably close to one. I think those chances are gone until something shakes up the system in 20 years or so.

With that glum opening, let's get back to Cleveland State...

Waters is a good coach but he's got his work cut out for him this year. Forbes and Lomomba aside, Cleveland State with Grady, Lewis, and Keane returning in 2015-16 still looked like a top contender to Valpo for the 2016 league crown. Without them, and adding in the loss of graduated seniors Charlie Lee and Marlin Mason, CSU looks like a team anchored in the lower half of the league.

Just two rotation players return, although the Vikes have some promising young players and transfers coming on. The top returning player is guard Andre Yates, who started 22 games last season, averaging 6.1 ppg. He is the team's top returning scorer, but the Vikings will need him to score a lot more this year, which means he has to up his .313 three point and .426 overall shooting percentages. The other returning rotation player is senior forward Vinny Zollo, who averaged 3.6 points and 2.7 rebounds in 13 minutes a game last year. Zollo, a muscular 6-8, 230 lbs., is an impressive physical specimen, but also has to step up for CSU to have much chance.

It's tough to say, but I suspect CSU will open the season with Kennesaw State transfer Myles Hamilton at the other guard spot. Hamilton averaged over 20 minutes a game as a freshman and soph at Kennesaw, scoring about 6 points per game. Waters recruited Hamilton, a Cleveland native, out of high school, so he must like the young man. But Hamilton is no lock to start, and Horizon ball is a clear cut above the Atlantic Sun. Detroiters Terrell Hales and Kenny Carpenter are sophomore combo guards who showed some promise as frosh, though combined they averaged just 2.4 points in 17 minutes per game. Hales has a rep as a defensive specialist; Carpenter is more likely to pick it up on the offensive end. We could see quite a bit of 3 guard line up from CSU.

Up front, a third Detroit area product, 6-7 freshman forward Jeron Rogers, is a good recruit who could see considerable PT. Juniors Aaron Scales (6-9, 260 lbs.) and Demonte Flannigan (6-7, 240) have yet to show much but they've at least got size. A key player up front could be redshirt freshman Jonothan Janssen, a 6-9 SF from Australia. It's hard to tell just what CSU has in Janssen, but Waters seems high on him. Any one of Flannigan, Rogers, or Janssen could start—at some point probably all three will. I suppose even Scales could surprise, which would help CSU a lot. SF Derek Sloan, a 6-5 redshirt soph, may also get a shot.

I don't see CSU winning a lot of games this year—somewhere around 5th or 6th place would seem to be their upside, and it's possible their season gets really nasty—but with Waters I think they'll be competitive and a danger to any team that doesn't show up ready to play.

Predicted Lineup:
PF – Vinny Zollo, 6-8 Sr. (3.6 ppg, 2.7 rpg)
F – Your guess is as good as mine, but I'll pencil in Jonothan Janssen, 6-9 RS Fr.
G – Terrell Hales, 6-4 Soph., (1.2 ppg, 0.6 apg)
PG – Andre Yates, 6-2 RS Jr. (6.1 ppg)
SG – Myles Hamilton, 6-1 RS Jr. (6.2 ppg, 2.3 apg with Kennesaw St. in 2014)

Other Key Players:
C – Aaron Scales, 6-9 RS Jr. (1.0 ppg, 1.2 rpg)
PF – Demonte Flannigan, 6-7 Jr. (2.0 ppg, 1.2 rpg)
SF – Jeron Rogers, 6-7 Fr.
G – Kenny Carpenter, 6-4 Soph. (1.2 ppg)

[wh]

by Commissioner » Mon Sep 21, 2015 7:11 pm

Green Bay

2015 Results
24-9 Overall
12-4 Conference (2nd)
RPI #60
Lost NIT 1st round

2016
Returns 36.7% of scoring
Returns 43.7% of rebounding

From the 2011 through the 2013 seasons, a lot of talent passed through UD's Calihan Hall. Young Ray McCallum was, thanks to unusual circumstances unlikely to be repeated, a national top 30 recruit playing in the Horizon. The Titans surrounded McCallum with some considerable, if lesser lights—Eli Holman, an Indiana transfer with a Big 10 body; All-Conference forward Nick Minnerath; 6-11 LaMarcus Lowe; Jason Calliste; the acrobatic Doug Anderson; Chase Simon; Juwan Howard, and more. But while these were good years for the Titans, they ended with a feeling of disappointment. Besides McCallum, who is now with the San Antonio Spurs, Minnerath, Holman, Lowe, Simon and Howard all played or are still playing pro ball overseas; Calliste and Anderson got NBA looks. Yes, I know not all these players were there at one time, they were at different stages of development, Minnerath was injured for a season—but with such talent, you'd have expected two or three NCAA bids, perhaps a run (or two) to the Sweet 16 (or deeper). But in the end, the Titans got 1 NCAA bid and 1 NIT bid, both with first round eliminations. Time and again the Titans led national opponents—Miami, Pitt, Kansas, Temple, Notre Dame, St. John's and more—well into the game, only to come up short. And so, despite a couple of nice seasons, the era feels a bit flat. It certainly didn't do much in terms of building good will for Coach Ray McCallum, who got that talent to Detroit but in the end couldn't get more out of it. Good years, yet disappointing years.

Green Bay has just completed a stretch not all that unlike that of the Titans from 2011-2013. They've had a lot of talent and quite a bit of success, yet if feels more like an opportunity lost than years of achievement.

Over the last few years two-time Horizon POY Kiefer Sykes and NBA draft pick Alex Brown have played at the Resch, joined by strong supporting cast members including three-time all-defensive selection Jordan Fouse and 2nd team all-conference forward Greg Mays. But in the end all they've got to show for it is a regular season HL championship in 2014, and first round losses in a pair of NITs and one CIT. Not even an NCAA appearance. Not bad, but not what it seems could have been.

You've got to appreciate Coach Brian Wardle. He knew when to hit the road. Wardle used those two NITs and back-to-back 24-win seasons to split for Bradley, a storied but long-struggling MVC progam. Bradley, however, still draws 7000 fans a game and more than doubles Wardle's budget (and presumably his salary). It is now up to new coach Linc Darner to get Green Bay to the next level, minus the departed Brown, Sykes and Mays.

Darner has a lot of holes to fill, but Wardle didn't leave the cupboard completely bare. Two starters return in seniors Jordan Fouse and Carrington Love, and Darner will build around them.

Fouse, a 6-7 G/F, is one of my very favorite players. A popular term these days is "glue guy," which is too often used to describe a player who plays a lot but really isn't much good at anything. But Fouse is the true "glue guy" in the best intended sense of the word—a player who just does whatever dirty work is necessary. Fouse has been named to the Horizon's All-Defensive team in each of his three seasons, and he led the conference in rebounding in 2013. Last year he was in the top 6 in the league in rebounding, assists, steals, blocks, field goal percentage, and assist/turnover ratio, the second year in a row he's been in the top 10 in all those categories except field-goal percentage, where he was 12th best two years ago. He can guard the 2, 3, or 4 and, if necessary, even the 1 or 5. If you watch Green Bay, he always seems to be the guy to come up with the loose ball. The only things he doesn't do well are shoot free throws—he's a 55% career shooter—and three pointers. The "glue guy" nature of Fouse's play shows up in some wonderful single game stat lines over his career. A few examples:
•   3 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 assists, 2 blocks
•   17 points, 9 rebounds
•   14 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals
•   6 points, 12 rebounds
•   16 points, 15 rebounds, 9 assists
•   11 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists
•   2 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks
•   0 points, 7 rebounds, 6 steals
•   1 point, 9 rebounds, 6 assists

In addition to Fouse's not inconsiderable output, Fouse's ability to play the 2, 3, or 4, or even the 1 in a jam, gives Darner some nice flexibility,. I've always thought Fouse could score more, but with Brown, Sykes, and Mays around he hasn't needed to. He's averaged between 6.5 and 7.6 ppg all three years, with a lot of his points coming on put backs. We'll see if he becomes more of a go-to guy on offense in his final season.

Love is a solid #2 guard who averaged 10 points and 3.1 assists last season. But while Love can handle the point for shorter stretches, and Fouse is a good passer, Green Bay's biggest weakness is the lack of a true point guard. Besides Love and Fouse (who will likely play a lot of guard this year) the Phoenix have 6-4 Junior Tevin Findlay, who played in just 17 games last year (73 minutes on the season) and 6-3 juco Charles Cooper, whom the Titans recruited as well. But both Findlay and Cooper, in addition to being relatively unproven, are really better suited to the #2 slot than the point. The Phoenix did sign a pair of freshman guards, identical twin brothers Anthony and Avery Brown out of Lake Minneola, Florida. I don't expect either to contribute much as freshmen but given the weakness at the point, they may get a chance.

The Phoenix are also short of good three point shooting. This was their Achilles heel a year ago, when they took more than 100 fewer attempts than any other team in the league, and had a league worst 29.4% success rate. And the two best three point shooters on that team – Sykes and Alfonso McKinney—have graduated. The juco Cooper is a scorer—he averaged almost 19 ppg last year at Kaskaskia—but not a big three point threat, hitting just 30% in fewer than two attempts per game. That leaves Love, who averaged 30% last season, and 6-7 SF/SG Turner Botz, who hit 25% in limited play. Khalil Small, a 6-2 soph, may also get some time at guard, though Small strikes me as a power forward in guard's body.

Up front, in addition to Fouse, the Phoenix return 6-8, 230 lb. junior Kenneth Lowe, who started 13 games last year and averaged nearly 20 minutes per game. Lowe's production was relatively sparse—just 3.4 points and 2.6 rebounds—and with Mays gone Lowe will need to step it up a notch. The Phoenix have a couple other big men who have shown some flashes of ability. 6-11, 240 lb. junior center Henry Uwadiae played in just 17 games last year, averaging less than a point and rebound per minute. The big Nigerian is an imposing physical presence on the court, but he's slow and his game is not well developed. Also available is Kareem Kanter, a 6-9, 245 lb. power forward from Turkey, by way of IMG Academy, who appeared in 19 games last year. He was formerly a member of the Turkish National 18u team. Both Uwadiae and Kanter played fewer than 90 minutes all last season, and it's the old catch-22—it's hard to develop the game without playing, and if your game is raw its hard to get minutes on a team, like last year's Phoenix, that is fighting for the league title and post-season play. Botz and Jamar Hurdle, a 6-7 juco transfer, may also see action in the front line.

Green Bay is too thin and too weak at guard to contend for the league title this year. Moreover, they still have no three point shooting, and Coach Linc Darner's D-II champions at Florida Southern were built around three point shooting (10 per game last year). Whether the Phoenix are a first or a second division team will depend on whether they can find steady play at the point, and whether someone steps up and knocks down some treys at better than a 33% clip.

Predicted Lineup:
G – Carrington Love, 6-1 Sr., 10.0 ppg, 3.2 apg
G – Charles Cooper, 6-3 Jr., 18.8 ppg at Kaskaskia CC
SF/G – Jordan Fouse, 6-7 Sr., 7.5 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 3.7 apg
PF – Kenneth Lowe, 6-8 Jr., 3.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg, .522 FG%
PF – Karem Kanter, 6-9 Soph., 1.6 ppg, 0.9 rpg.

Other Key Players:
G – Tevin Findlay, 6-4 Jr., 0.5 ppg
G/F – Turner Botz, 6-7 Jr., 1.3 ppg
F – Jamar Hurdle, 6-7 Jr., 13.6 ppg at Des Moines CC
G – Khalil Small, 6-2 Soph., 2.2 ppg, 1.3 rpg

[VULB#62]

Thanks WH.  The Commish does a great job of articulating the nuances of the game.  Appreciate his insight.  Will be pissed, however, if he short changes VU 

Man, win or lose I hope we show well against D-I OOC opponents.

[wh]

by Commissioner » Fri Sep 25, 2015 2:53 pm

UIC

2015
10-24 Overall
4-12 Conference (7th)
RPI #297

2016
Returns 56.0% of scoring
Returns 55.2% of rebounding

Quite a few folks see UIC as the Horizon's sleeping giant. The Flames are basically a commuter school, it's true, but they've got good facilities, and they're backed by a solid university that has some cash. They're in one of the nation's largest and most fertile basketball markets, yet one that no longer has a dominant college team. The city's traditional powers, DePaul and Loyola, haven't been relevant in years –decades in Loyola's case, although the Ramblers seem to have a new "can do" spirit with their move to the MVC. Northwestern is, well, Northwestern. Illinois has many supporters but it's not the home town team. The city is there for the taking. And the Flames were pretty good not all that long ago, making 3 NCAA bids in 7 years around the turn of the last century, and winning 65 games from 2002 to 2004 before flat lining a few years back.

Howard Moore got the first crack at restoring UIC basketball, and for just a few weeks, in the fall of 2012, it looked his efforts might pay off. The Flames started out 9-1, knocking off Colorado State (which would win 26 games, including its first round NCAA game), eventual 24-game winner and A-Sun favorite Mercer, and MAAC favorite and eventual NCAA team Iona, as well as scoring a road win over Northwestern. 'Twas not to be however, as Moore's teams went 25-64 from that point on, and Moore was let go after last year's 10-24 campaign.

The new head man is 53 year old Steve McLain, recently an assistant at Indiana and Colorado, and before that head coach at Wyoming, where he compiled a .577 winning percentage, including 1 NCAA bid, in nine years.

The Flames lose their top three players in minutes played, including leading scorer Jay Harris, as well as two other rotation players who combined started 26 games. But then again, when you're coming off a two-year record of 16-49, it's not necessarily a bad thing to start over. And despite his late start, McLain brought in a very good recruiting class, several of whom should see good PT in the coming year.

The star of that 7 man recruiting class is 6-7 small forward Dikembe Dixson, who chose UIC over offers from Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, South Carolina, and crosstown rival DePaul, not to mention a slew of mid-majors. An excellent transition player and solid three point threat, Dixson should contend for Horizon Freshman of the Year in what was a strong recruiting year for the league. Also in UIC's fold is 6-2 three-star SG Dominique Matthews, a local kid who also turned down an SEC offer (Mississippi) to play for McLean at UIC. Then there is 6-9, 240 lb. center Julian Torres, originally the pride of Green Bay's recruiting class. Torres got his release from Green Bay when Brian Wardle split for Bradley, and chose UIC over a number of MVC and other mid-major offers.

"But wait, there's more!" McLean pulled a couple of nice recruits out of Texas. 6-7 PF Hassan Thomas is another 3-star recruit who passed on SMU, TCU, UTEP, and many others to play at UIC. And Michael Kolawole, a 6-3 shooting guard, is also coming up from Texas after spurning offers from Mountain West and Atlantic 10 conference schools.

Rounding out the league's best recruiting class are 6-6 juco transfer Najeal Young, a wing who averaged 14.1 points and 8.5 rebounds last year Lincoln JC, and passed on offers from Murray State and Buffalo, and 6-2 point guard Drew Hackett from Muncie, who scored 51 points in the Indiana Sectional Championship game this past spring. Hackett is the least heralded member of the class, but as UIC is thin at the point he'll get a chance to make his mark.

UIC's top returning players are sophomore power forward Tai Odiase, and senior point guard Paris Burns. Burns, the Flames' top returning scorer at 10.4 points per game, was just hitting his stride last season – averaging 16.8 points and 4.8 assists over an eight game stretch – when undisclosed personal problems sent him to the sidelines. After playing just 24 ineffective minutes in two games against Oakland and Green Bay, Burns left the team with Coach Moore's blessing for the season finale and the Flames' surprising 3 game run in the Horizon tournament. If Burns has his problems straightened out, he'll start at the point. UIC will need him, because the only other real point guard on the roster is the freshman Hackett.

Odiase, though slowed by injuries, was the Horizon's #2 shot blocker last year as a freshman and will give UIC a strong inside presence. Also returning is the enimatic 6-8 senior Jake Wiegand. Wiegand started last year with double-doubles against DePaul and Western Illinois, followed shortly after by a 26 point game against Kent State and two more double-doubles against Grand Canyon and D-III St. Xavier. Although his number dropped some as the year went on, Wiegand was still averaging 11.9 point and 7.2 rebounds per game when he was pulled from the starting lineup in late January. Apparently, Moore had just grown tired of Wiegand's erratic shooting, tendency to make bone-head plays, and sometimes lackadaisical approach to the game. Wiegand has talent and if McLain can get him focused, UIC could have a strong front court.

The Flames should have lively competition at the #2 and #3 slots. Besides the freshmen Dixon, Matthews, and Kolawole, and the juco Young, they've got junior Markese McGuire, and senior Gabe Snyder. McGuire started 13 games last year, while Snyder is the team's top returning 3 point shooter. He'll probably play the role of 3-point specialist this year. Also back is redshirt sophomore swingman Lance Whitaker, who has battled injuries through his career.

Things are looking up at UIC but this team is at least a year away from contention. They're inexperienced, they lack three point shooting, and they lack depth at the point. Burns is a talented player but sometimes plays out of control and remains suspect for a guy who may need to be playing 33 minutes a game. But if Wiegand can cut down on the mistakes, if Odiase takes a step forward, and if even a couple of the freshmen contribute, UIC can make some noise in the Horizon this year.

Predicted Lineup:
PG – Paris Burns, 5-10 Sr., 10.4 ppg, 2.4 apg.
SG – Markese McGuire, 6-3, Jr., 4.2 ppg
SF – Dikembe Dixon, 6-7 Fr.
PF – Jake Wiegand, 6-8 Sr., 7.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg
C – Tai Odiase, 6-9 Soph. C, 4.4 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.7 bpg

Other Key Players
SF – Lance Whitaker, 6-4 Soph. 2.9 ppg, 2.0 rpg.
SF/SG- Najeal Young, 6-6 Jr., 14.1 ppg, 8.5 rpg at Lincoln JC
G – Gabe Snyder, 6-3 Sr., 3.3 ppg, .383 3P%
G – Dominique Matthews, 6-2 Fr.
PF – Hassan Thomas, 6-7 Fr.
C- Julian Torres, 6-9 Fr.

[bbtds]

Thanks WH.  The Commish does a great job of articulating the nuances of the game.  Appreciate his insight.  Will be pissed, however, if he short changes VU 

Man, win or lose I hope we show well against D-I OOC opponents.

I think he has been fair to Valpo in past previews (oxy-moronic?) with a feel for tempering some of the brown and gold colored favoritism that permeates this board (as a fan board should) to give a good and honest assessment. Nobody loves a team like their fans!!!!

[blackpantheruwm]

I always enjoy the Commish's previews. I especially like how they usually are tailored for the Detroit fan base, as it gives some insight to the politics of their fan base and how they view the other programs.

[wh]

Re: 2015-16 Horizon League Team Previews
by Commissioner
Milwaukee

2015
14-16 Overall
9-7 Conference (5th)
RPI #209

2016
Returns 75.6% of scoring
Returns 81.9% of rebounding

A year ago I began my preview of Milwaukee by noting:

"Coming off an NCAA appearance, with most of the team back, folks in Milwaukee are understandably looking forward to the 2014-15 season. But here's the stark reality, Panther fans – your team is not that good."
http://udtitanbasketball.freeforums.net/post/3054.

I went on to explain why Milwaukee's 21-victory season of 2014 was a fluke unlikely to be repeated. I concluded, "There is some talent here. Just not enough to contend." Read more: http://udtitanbasketball.freeforums.net ... z3nFQc2QeJ.

This infuriated Panther fans, who were even going onto other teams' boards to berate me. So I felt rather vindicated by the Panthers' 14-16 finish (though they did do a little better than I had predicted in conference, winning 9 instead of 7 games, mainly a matter of luck).

This year expectations are again high in the Panther camp. Down the stretch, Milwaukee won 9 of 13, 7 of 9, and their last 4 in a row last season, and again have almost the entire team returning. The Panthers are a trendy pick for third in the Horizon in the national publications, but Panther fans are talking championship, even contention for an at-large bid should they falter in the conference tournament. Well, again I have to deliver the bad news – the Panthers still aren't that good.

By "that good" I don't mean not good enough to finish third. In a Horizon that lacks top quality teams at the top, they could well do that. So I won't argue if you want to pick them third. But while a third place finish is certainly plausible, so is a bit lower finish, and in any case I don't see the title contender Milwaukee fans seem to think they have.

For those predicting title contention, the same type of statistical warning signs that were present a year ago are present again. Of course, the ultimate goal in in any sport is to win games, not to pad stats. But there is a reason we keep stats, and if you know how to use stats, you know that they are both descriptive of what has happened, and predictive of what is likely to happen going forward. Over time, teams with the best stats usually win the most games. The difference between what the stats would predict and a team's actual record may be attributable to good coaching, or clutch play, but more often, it is just luck. Teams that exceed their statistical projections are good bets to decline, while teams that underperform their statistical projections are good bets to improve. Unfortunately for the Panthers, last year's stats still don't look too good if you are expecting major improvement this year.

Milwaukee was outscored on the season by 3.8 points per game. By contrast the Titans, who played a similar non-conference strength of schedule, were outscored by just 0.1 points per game in a similar (15-18) season. Despite a 9-7 league record, the Panthers were outscored in league play as well, by 1.2 ppg (the Titans, just 7-9 in league, were outscored by 1.3 ppg). As I noted last year, teams that are outscored over the course of a season don't usually finish above .500, suggesting that Milwaukee's 14-16 record was about right. Milwaukee opponents had a better shooting percentage than the Panthers, substantially better from three-point range; the Panthers were out-rebounded; they committed more turnovers than their opponents and had a higher TO/A ratio. In fact, they were 8th in the league in effective field goal percentage, and dead last with the most turnovers.

Ken Pomeroy ranked Milwaukee as the 75th luckiest team in the nation last year, that is to say, in the top 25 percent for "luckiness." (By comparison, the Titans were the 204th luckiest team (i.e. they were unlucky); Valparaiso 58th; Green Bay 100th; Oakland 136th). In other words, the stats say that the Panthers' 14-16 finish last season was no fluke—if anything, it was slightly better than the team really played.

But Milwaukee's optimism is geared, to a large extent, on last year's strong finish. What about that? Well, 7-2 down the stretch is pretty good, to be sure. But again, a deeper look makes it less impressive than it seems. The Panthers were 0-7 against top 100 RPI teams last year – the only other Horizon teams not to score a top 100 RPI win were league dregs UIC, YSU, and WSU. Milwaukee started last season 0-11 in true road games. So what about that finish? The Panthers did win their final 3 road games as part of their season ending four game winning streak, but those were against UIC, Youngstown, and Wright State, the three worst teams in the league, and at the time WSU was so injury-wracked it could hardly put a team on the floor. That 7-2 finish also included home wins over 6th place Detroit and 7th place UIC. Now, they did get home wins over third and fourth place Oakland and Cleveland State in that stretch, and that's nice, but hey, our Titans did that, too, and Detroit fans aren't all hepped up that that presages a run for the title this year.

While a 7-2 finish is nice, on closer look Milwaukee's big finish appears not to be the result of playing better so much as playing the weak part of its schedule. Down the stretch the Panthers did well, but basically what you'd expect a middle-of-the-pack team to do against those teams. The coincidence of late season scheduling in 2014-15 does not mean that the Panthers' finish will carry-over to 2015-16.

So, true, Milwaukee has most of its team back, but it was a pretty average team. The real question has to be, can we expect major improvement?

Well, yes, maybe. But I'm guessing not. Milwaukee loses just one important player, but that loss is a big one—its best player, Steve McWhorter, who played the most important position, point guard. On the other hand, they get back redshirt junior small forward Austin Arians, who missed last season with an ankle injury. That swap seems unlikely to make Milwaukee better, so they have to hope for improvement elsewhere. How realistic is that? Well, if they can find a point guard—and they've got some decent options—I think they'll be better, and third place is possible. But the type of major improvement needed to truly contend for the title? I don't see it.

The Panthers' best returning player is senior forward Matt Tiby (13.3. ppg, 7.8 rpg), a second team all-conference selection last season. Looking around other teams' message boards, Tiby seems to be one of the most hated players in the league. Personally, I like him. He's a tough, hard-nosed player who is a likely first-team all-conference selection this year. Tiby does a lot of things well, but thing he may do wellest is get to the line and make free throws. Last year he attempted 154, 5th highest total in the league, and made over 81 percent of them. (After adding in fouls by Tiby, he still single-handedly accounts for one of Milwaukee's main strengths last year, which was outscoring opponents by 61 points at the foul line, 2nd best margin in the league). He gets to the line with tough, inside play.

At center the Panthers' have 6-10, 225 lb. senior J.J. Panoske (7.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 7th in the league in blocks). Panoske is a bit soft for my tastes—he seems to prefer stepping out for a three to trying to post up down low, and his blocks come more from finesse than power—but he'll do, especially with Tiby to do the banging.

The small forward should be Arians, a catch and shoot guy who cuts and moves well without the ball and plays solid defense. I like Arians, but again, I think Milwaukee fans tend to think a bit too highly of him. As a sophomore in 2014 he averaged 11.1 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 36.7% from the three. That's good for a small forward but nothing special. Moreover, his numbers dropped in conference play, where he scored in single digits, and his three point shooting fell to a pretty mediocre 33 percent. Like Tiby and Panoske, he's a good foul shooter. After a year off he'll probably be a bit rusty to start, but I expect he'll be performing at or near 100% by the time conference play begins. How good is that? If all goes well for Milwaukee, Arians will contest for second team all-conference honors. But the wiser Panther fan will temper expectations. I see him as a good player but not a likely recipient of post-season honors.

The off guard is muscular 6-4 junior Akeem Springs, who averaged 10.3 ppg last season. He's a good rebounder, too, second to Tiby on the team at 4.9 per game. They'll need him to help out on the boards, because after Tiby this team doesn't have much rebounding presence, given Panoske's softness. Springs needs to improve his three point shooting (28.6% last season) but he can definitely score on drives and short jumpers. He's a solid player at the #2 or #3 slots and can also slide over and play the point for shorter stretches.

That leaves the all-important point guard position, where McWhorter averaged 35 minutes per game last season. Assuming you don't want Springs at the point full time (and you don't), the Panthers have three pretty reasonable options, two of whom saw plenty of time last year, though mainly at the #2 and #3 slots. Senior JeVon (J.R.) Lyle started 16 games last season, averaging 6.3 ppg. Sophomore Justin Jordan started 15 games last year, averaging 5 ppg. The third option is juco All-American Jordan Johnson, a little guy who will remind you of Oakland's Kahlil Felder, with his head for the ball, his quickness, and his ability to a) get to the line and b) knock down free throws. The key for the Panthers will be that one of these three comes through. My money is on Johnson.

As for the bench, the Panthers have depth in the backcourt and on the wing, but are slim up front. Besides the guards noted above, they've got 6-5 junior wing Cody Wichmann, a 40% shooter from behind the arc, and Murray State transfer JayQuan McCloud, who will be eligible at the end of fall semester. McCloud was Murray State's most highly touted recruit last year, the presumed successor to Isaiah Canaan. Instead, McCloud quit the team in October, citing homesickness, and moved back closer to home (he's from North Chicago). In high school McCloud was an explosive scorer—we'll have to see what he can do at Milwaukee. I've noted before that the mid-year transfer thing is tough, but I expect McCloud to see action in conference play despite the Panthers' depth at guard. 6-4 redshirt freshman Brock Stull is another option.

Up front, though, there's not much behind the starters. Redshirt sophomore Brett Prahl played in 25 games last season, averaging 2.1 points and 1.2 rebounds. His identical twin Alex played just 87 minutes on the season, much of it garbage time. They've also got 6-7 Scotty Tyler, a sophomore transfer from Idaho State, where he averaged 2 points and 1.4 rebounds as a freshman in 2014. Panoske averaged just 20.8 minutes last year, and that was a big increase over 2014. He'll probably have to play a lot more and the jury's out on whether he can. This team needs Brett Prahl (or perhaps Tyler) to take a big step forward.

An injury to Tiby and this team is going to be hurting for size. And they need someone to step up at point. But assuming I'm right and that the first doesn't happen and the second does, the Panthers should be pretty good. They're an excellent free throw shooting team, they've got some three-point shooting, and they've got one of the league's best players in Tiby.

Still, in the end you're taking a 14-16 team, subbing out McWhorter for Johnson at the point, and adding Arians back in. Is that enough for about a 4 game improvement in conference (from 9-7 to say 14-4), and 8+ games overall (to 23-8), which is probably what you'll need to contend? Do you see Milwaukee going 23-8? I'm skeptical. I think Johnson will do the job at point, but he probably won't be as good this year as McWhorter was last year. Tiby will be very good but I don't see any of the other returning players as strong candidates for major improvement, except maybe Jordan. I suppose Springs could play better, or Panoske, if he could learn some toughness from Tiby. I just don't really see them as challenging Valpo for the regular season title. But third is a possibility, and they could pull an upset in the conference tournament, so it should be a pretty good year to be a Panther fan.

Probable starters[
PG – Jordan Johnson, 5-9 Jr., 15.3 ppg, 6.1 apg at John Wood CC.
SG – Akeem Springs, 6-4 Jr., 10.3 ppg, 4.9 rpg
SF – Austin Arians, 6-5 Jr., 11.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg, in 2014; Injury RS in 2015.
PF – Matt Tiby, 6-8 Sr., 13.3 ppg, 7.8 rpg.
C – J.J. Panoske, 6-10 Sr., 7.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 1.0 bpg

Other key players
G- J.R. Lyle, 6-2 Sr., 6.3 ppg
G – Justin Jordan, 6-3 Soph., 5.0 ppg, 2.2 rpg
G/F – Cody Wichmann, 6-5 Jr., 6.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, .406 3P%
F – Brett Prahl, 6-9 Soph., 2.1 ppg, 1.2 rpg
F – Scott Tyler, 6-7 Soph., 2 ppg, 1.4 rpg at Idaho St. in 2014.

[blackpantheruwm]

Re: 2015-16 Horizon League Team Previews
by Commissioner
Milwaukee

2015
14-16 Overall
9-7 Conference (5th)
RPI #209

2016
Returns 75.6% of scoring
Returns 81.9% of rebounding

A year ago I began my preview of Milwaukee by noting:

"Coming off an NCAA appearance, with most of the team back, folks in Milwaukee are understandably looking forward to the 2014-15 season. But here's the stark reality, Panther fans – your team is not that good."
http://udtitanbasketball.freeforums.net/post/3054.

I went on to explain why Milwaukee's 21-victory season of 2014 was a fluke unlikely to be repeated. I concluded, "There is some talent here. Just not enough to contend." Read more: http://udtitanbasketball.freeforums.net ... z3nFQc2QeJ.

This infuriated Panther fans, who were even going onto other teams' boards to berate me. So I felt rather vindicated by the Panthers' 14-16 finish (though they did do a little better than I had predicted in conference, winning 9 instead of 7 games, mainly a matter of luck).

I get this, but isn't it part of being a fan for us to be higher on our own teams than everyone else?

It should also be noted that when Commissioner's preview went up, we had no idea that Austin Arians (11.1 ppg) would be out for the season. Later, he notes that his redshirt was an injury redshirt. It is and it isn't - Austin could have been back a bit before Christmas, but opted to save a year of eligibility for a year that, you know, we weren't on an APR ban.

Also, Akeem Springs spent two months playing with a broken hand that a trainer had diagnosed as a sprain. Not a highlight our training program wants to get out there, but that guy went to UW-La Crosse and is gone now so whatever hahaha.

I only bring these up because a lot of our fans' hopes for the season wouldn't have been as high without the two guys expected to create 90% of our scoring on the wing.

This year expectations are again high in the Panther camp. Down the stretch, Milwaukee won 9 of 13, 7 of 9, and their last 4 in a row last season, and again have almost the entire team returning. The Panthers are a trendy pick for third in the Horizon in the national publications, but Panther fans are talking championship, even contention for an at-large bid should they falter in the conference tournament. Well, again I have to deliver the bad news – the Panthers still aren't that good.

By "that good" I don't mean not good enough to finish third. In a Horizon that lacks top quality teams at the top, they could well do that. So I won't argue if you want to pick them third. But while a third place finish is certainly plausible, so is a bit lower finish, and in any case I don't see the title contender Milwaukee fans seem to think they have.

For those predicting title contention, the same type of statistical warning signs that were present a year ago are present again. Of course, the ultimate goal in in any sport is to win games, not to pad stats. But there is a reason we keep stats, and if you know how to use stats, you know that they are both descriptive of what has happened, and predictive of what is likely to happen going forward. Over time, teams with the best stats usually win the most games. The difference between what the stats would predict and a team's actual record may be attributable to good coaching, or clutch play, but more often, it is just luck. Teams that exceed their statistical projections are good bets to decline, while teams that underperform their statistical projections are good bets to improve. Unfortunately for the Panthers, last year's stats still don't look too good if you are expecting major improvement this year.

Milwaukee was outscored on the season by 3.8 points per game. By contrast the Titans, who played a similar non-conference strength of schedule, were outscored by just 0.1 points per game in a similar (15-18) season. Despite a 9-7 league record, the Panthers were outscored in league play as well, by 1.2 ppg (the Titans, just 7-9 in league, were outscored by 1.3 ppg). As I noted last year, teams that are outscored over the course of a season don't usually finish above .500, suggesting that Milwaukee's 14-16 record was about right. Milwaukee opponents had a better shooting percentage than the Panthers, substantially better from three-point range; the Panthers were out-rebounded; they committed more turnovers than their opponents and had a higher TO/A ratio. In fact, they were 8th in the league in effective field goal percentage, and dead last with the most turnovers.

I'll point to Springs' injury for this. Without him, we lacked a lot of our scoring - Tiby and McWhorter were our only steady hands scoring points, so until Springs was healthy, we were very much a two-trick pony offensively. That led to a lot of blowouts - you'll notice their only 15+ point losses after January 4th (when Springs was close to being healthy) came to GB and Valpo, who were definitely two of the best three teams in the HL last season.

Ken Pomeroy ranked Milwaukee as the 75th luckiest team in the nation last year, that is to say, in the top 25 percent for "luckiness." (By comparison, the Titans were the 204th luckiest team (i.e. they were unlucky); Valparaiso 58th; Green Bay 100th; Oakland 136th). In other words, the stats say that the Panthers' 14-16 finish last season was no fluke—if anything, it was slightly better than the team really played.

Luck is whatever. Maryland was one of the "luckiest" teams in the NCAA last year. Duke, the national champions, were the 37th luckiest team in Division I. National runner-up Wisconsin was 145th luckiest. It's a meaningless stat.

But Milwaukee's optimism is geared, to a large extent, on last year's strong finish. What about that? Well, 7-2 down the stretch is pretty good, to be sure. But again, a deeper look makes it less impressive than it seems. The Panthers were 0-7 against top 100 RPI teams last year – the only other Horizon teams not to score a top 100 RPI win were league dregs UIC, YSU, and WSU. Milwaukee started last season 0-11 in true road games. So what about that finish? The Panthers did win their final 3 road games as part of their season ending four game winning streak, but those were against UIC, Youngstown, and Wright State, the three worst teams in the league, and at the time WSU was so injury-wracked it could hardly put a team on the floor. That 7-2 finish also included home wins over 6th place Detroit and 7th place UIC. Now, they did get home wins over third and fourth place Oakland and Cleveland State in that stretch, and that's nice, but hey, our Titans did that, too, and Detroit fans aren't all hepped up that that presages a run for the title this year.

While a 7-2 finish is nice, on closer look Milwaukee's big finish appears not to be the result of playing better so much as playing the weak part of its schedule. Down the stretch the Panthers did well, but basically what you'd expect a middle-of-the-pack team to do against those teams. The coincidence of late season scheduling in 2014-15 does not mean that the Panthers' finish will carry-over to 2015-16.

The late-season run is less an indication of impending greatness as much as it is a cause for optimism coming into a season. We're fans, after all. If you were looking for an indication of anything, I'd point to this - Milwaukee was putting away the teams a middle-of-the-road team *should* put away. That was a big difference from the non-conference season. Milwaukee got beat by low-majors like South Dakota, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville...hell, we even lost to IUPUI. I seriously doubt the team that was playing in February would have lost to any of those teams, much less gotten blown out like what happened at South Dakota.

You don't even need to compare different teams - We beat Cleveland State by six after losing to them two months earlier by twenty-seven. We beat Detroit by four after losing to them by 16. We beat Oakland by 17 after losing to them by 16. Those are point swings of 33, 20 and 33. When we say it was a different team, we aren't just whistling dixie. A better team in Valpo only beat us by seven after dropping us by 25 a month earlier.

I don't think anyone is going to say we were just out of the top tier last year. This year, no one has on paper what Valpo has. No one is arguing that.

So, true, Milwaukee has most of its team back, but it was a pretty average team. The real question has to be, can we expect major improvement?

Well, yes, maybe. But I'm guessing not. Milwaukee loses just one important player, but that loss is a big one—its best player, Steve McWhorter, who played the most important position, point guard. On the other hand, they get back redshirt junior small forward Austin Arians, who missed last season with an ankle injury. That swap seems unlikely to make Milwaukee better, so they have to hope for improvement elsewhere. How realistic is that? Well, if they can find a point guard—and they've got some decent options—I think they'll be better, and third place is possible. But the type of major improvement needed to truly contend for the title? I don't see it.

That is a reasonable assessment. McWhorter is a huge loss, especially since he had to carry much of the scoring load without our two best wing scorers last season (we got Springs to 100% halfway).

We have options at point guard. I've only seen the new players practice a couple times, and I think we'll be fine at point. We don't have a McWhorter in that spot, that much is certain. Comparing McWhorter to Arians is an odd one considering they're completely different players, but I understand he's talking about scoring. Arians has been healthy for nine months now, so it's not like we have a guy coming back from an ACL tear or something.

The Panthers' best returning player is senior forward Matt Tiby (13.3. ppg, 7.8 rpg), a second team all-conference selection last season. Looking around other teams' message boards, Tiby seems to be one of the most hated players in the league. Personally, I like him. He's a tough, hard-nosed player who is a likely first-team all-conference selection this year. Tiby does a lot of things well, but thing he may do wellest is get to the line and make free throws. Last year he attempted 154, 5th highest total in the league, and made over 81 percent of them. (After adding in fouls by Tiby, he still single-handedly accounts for one of Milwaukee's main strengths last year, which was outscoring opponents by 61 points at the foul line, 2nd best margin in the league). He gets to the line with tough, inside play.

At center the Panthers' have 6-10, 225 lb. senior J.J. Panoske (7.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 7th in the league in blocks). Panoske is a bit soft for my tastes—he seems to prefer stepping out for a three to trying to post up down low, and his blocks come more from finesse than power—but he'll do, especially with Tiby to do the banging.

No argument here. Panoske never built into the banger that we thought he could, but that's just not his game. I would have preferred that if we knew what he would develop into as a senior, we could put him away from center and get a real banger at the five. His problem with blocking - by talent he should be close to the lead in blocks - is that he often gets caught going for the block when he should be putting more of a body into somebody. Offensively, he settles too much for where he gets the ball with his back to the basket rather than trying to back someone down and get himself in better position to score.

[blackpantheruwm]

The small forward should be Arians, a catch and shoot guy who cuts and moves well without the ball and plays solid defense. I like Arians, but again, I think Milwaukee fans tend to think a bit too highly of him. As a sophomore in 2014 he averaged 11.1 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 36.7% from the three. That's good for a small forward but nothing special. Moreover, his numbers dropped in conference play, where he scored in single digits, and his three point shooting fell to a pretty mediocre 33 percent. Like Tiby and Panoske, he's a good foul shooter. After a year off he'll probably be a bit rusty to start, but I expect he'll be performing at or near 100% by the time conference play begins. How good is that? If all goes well for Milwaukee, Arians will contest for second team all-conference honors. But the wiser Panther fan will temper expectations. I see him as a good player but not a likely recipient of post-season honors.

I don't understand this. So Arians, as a sophomore, scored 11.1 points per game. He has a full year redshirt year in between, and he's "not a likely recipient of post-season honors." The only reason I don't see him getting post-season honors is if he doesn't improve at all or only a tiny bit. And if he averages 11-12 points and 4-5 rebounds, he'd be a shoo-in for 3rd team all-conference. Oh wait, we don't have a 3rd team. (ghostofdylan and I on the UWMFreak board have long held the Horizon League limiting all-conference honors to two teams stops a bunch of worthy players from being honored. We don't even have honorable mention!)

Arians was how we were beating Villanova as late as we were in our NCAA Tournament game in March '14. This is a kid who went from 6.6 ppg as a freshman to 11.1 as a sophomore and then got a whole year to just focus on his game. I'm a fan, and therefore I'm very biased. But I think Commissioner's strong dislike for Milwaukee is causing him to short change Arians here.

The off guard is muscular 6-4 junior Akeem Springs, who averaged 10.3 ppg last season. He's a good rebounder, too, second to Tiby on the team at 4.9 per game. They'll need him to help out on the boards, because after Tiby this team doesn't have much rebounding presence, given Panoske's softness. Springs needs to improve his three point shooting (28.6% last season) but he can definitely score on drives and short jumpers. He's a solid player at the #2 or #3 slots and can also slide over and play the point for shorter stretches.

That leaves the all-important point guard position, where McWhorter averaged 35 minutes per game last season. Assuming you don't want Springs at the point full time (and you don't), the Panthers have three pretty reasonable options, two of whom saw plenty of time last year, though mainly at the #2 and #3 slots. Senior JeVon (J.R.) Lyle started 16 games last season, averaging 6.3 ppg. Sophomore Justin Jordan started 15 games last year, averaging 5 ppg. The third option is juco All-American Jordan Johnson, a little guy who will remind you of Oakland's Kahlil Felder, with his head for the ball, his quickness, and his ability to a) get to the line and b) knock down free throws. The key for the Panthers will be that one of these three comes through. My money is on Johnson.

No arguments here, but I took the break so I could talk about the newcomer. Jordan Johnson is definitely reminiscent of Felder, but more of a combination of Felder and our former PG Jordan Aaron. Combining Aaron and Felder into one player sounds pretty amazing, but you just never know what a player is going to do until he's on the court. We had a guy once upon a time named Roman Gentry who would drop 50 on teammates in practice games with ease, then never show up in the games. I'm sure VU has had players like that. I expect big things out of Jordan Johnson, but as we've noted before, this is me. So it could go either way.

As for the bench, the Panthers have depth in the backcourt and on the wing, but are slim up front. Besides the guards noted above, they've got 6-5 junior wing Cody Wichmann, a 40% shooter from behind the arc, and Murray State transfer JayQuan McCloud, who will be eligible at the end of fall semester. McCloud was Murray State's most highly touted recruit last year, the presumed successor to Isaiah Canaan. Instead, McCloud quit the team in October, citing homesickness, and moved back closer to home (he's from North Chicago). In high school McCloud was an explosive scorer—we'll have to see what he can do at Milwaukee. I've noted before that the mid-year transfer thing is tough, but I expect McCloud to see action in conference play despite the Panthers' depth at guard. 6-4 redshirt freshman Brock Stull is another option.

JayQuan McCloud wanted to play for a good program like Murray State, but showed up in Kentucky and just didn't mesh with it at all. The team wasn't a good fit, and rural Kentucky wasn't a good fit. He's a good kid and pretty happy here, so hopefully he'll be able to flourish. He's a slasher with the best of them and could be a candidate for significant point time if Jordan Johnson turns out to be better off-the-ball. From the limited playing time I've seen, he's a little too free with the ball for me to say he's a sure-fire all-Freshman team player, and as Commissioner noted the mid-season start is a rough one for a lot of people. But he's been practicing with everyone for longer than the others, so he's got more familiarity than the other newcomers.

Jeter has found a mold that he likes for the small forward spot, and Brock Stull fits it pretty well. I think he'll fit in the middle of Arians and Wichmann, other players who fit the tall-wing-spot-shooter-who-can-cut. He's better defensively than either of them were as freshmen (and Wichmann is still something of a liability there), but I haven't seen the cutting ability that Arians showed. For what it's worth, the recruit we just picked up, Max Curran from New Hampshire, also fits this mold.

Up front, though, there's not much behind the starters. Redshirt sophomore Brett Prahl played in 25 games last season, averaging 2.1 points and 1.2 rebounds. His identical twin Alex played just 87 minutes on the season, much of it garbage time. They've also got 6-7 Scotty Tyler, a sophomore transfer from Idaho State, where he averaged 2 points and 1.4 rebounds as a freshman in 2014. Panoske averaged just 20.8 minutes last year, and that was a big increase over 2014. He'll probably have to play a lot more and the jury's out on whether he can. This team needs Brett Prahl (or perhaps Tyler) to take a big step forward.

An injury to Tiby and this team is going to be hurting for size. And they need someone to step up at point. But assuming I'm right and that the first doesn't happen and the second does, the Panthers should be pretty good. They're an excellent free throw shooting team, they've got some three-point shooting, and they've got one of the league's best players in Tiby.

I think it would not be a stretch to say that our ceiling drops dramatically if Tiby is hurt. Then again, where does Valpo's ceiling go if Alec Peters gets hurt? Or Oakland without Felder? You take the best player off of any team and they're going to fall off a bunch.

Pointing it out is fine, though, because it does show our thin depth on the front court. Scotty Tyler is pretty talented, but I don't know if he'll be ready to run with the Horizon League's quicker front court players right away. He's not a big dude, but conditioning is a bit of a concern from where I sit. In small spurts, he shows some surprising skill. He's gassed too quickly to be a big time 20-minutes-per-game player this season. That may have changed since I last saw him play (he was out of town at a wedding for the last practice I attended), but from last spring he was still in need of heavy conditioning.

The Prahl twins are easy to pick apart because Brett is much further along in his game. Alex is a preferred walk-on, so I expect he'll be a player we can use by the time he's a senior. He's a sophomore, though, so it's another year of working on his game. Brett should be better, though. You could see him working harder towards the end of the year in practice when he realized he could be a contributor right now. It's not a great thing to see, but I felt like he kind of mailed it in the first half of the season because he wasn't a featured guy. He's done some growing up, though. After all, he's a college kid. Whether he realizes his potential - which is the banger that Panoske is not, with the finesse offense that Panoske has a good handle on - is entirely up to him.

Don't be surprised if you see Dan Studer on the court more. Jeter is a big fan of people who do all the right things on the court, and he never has had a lot of them. But Studer tends to not make mistakes. He's reminiscent of Jason Averkamp, a walk-on we had who developed into one of our best players in 2009 as a senior.

Still, in the end you're taking a 14-16 team, subbing out McWhorter for Johnson at the point, and adding Arians back in. Is that enough for about a 4 game improvement in conference (from 9-7 to say 14-4), and 8+ games overall (to 23-8), which is probably what you'll need to contend? Do you see Milwaukee going 23-8? I'm skeptical. I think Johnson will do the job at point, but he probably won't be as good this year as McWhorter was last year. Tiby will be very good but I don't see any of the other returning players as strong candidates for major improvement, except maybe Jordan. I suppose Springs could play better, or Panoske, if he could learn some toughness from Tiby. I just don't really see them as challenging Valpo for the regular season title. But third is a possibility, and they could pull an upset in the conference tournament, so it should be a pretty good year to be a Panther fan.

All in all, I think Commissioner has done a great job of evaluating our team. He's giving our players their due - although I think he was a little too low on Arians - but overall his perspective is very valuable. I think it's easy to look at the box scores and the basketball analytics and say this team is going to be ho-hum. I think we'll challenge for a title, because I think while our front court is fairly thin, so is everyone else's.

The intangibles are where I think our guys are different from other Panther teams of the past. They're...hungry. Rob Jeter has never been the best at motivating - it's one of the knocks pretty much everyone around our program would say - but this team has no problem with that at all.

[justducky]

The better the Panthers are the better I like it. The HL needs 3 or more top 100 teams every year just to stay in the top 12 conference conversation.

Just looked at their OOC schedule. It is very solid and includes trips to Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Wish those teams would have played us. Anyway looks overall like they found quality opponents much easier than we did and lets all hope that Oakland, UWM and VU can use this season to start putting the HL back on the map.

[wh]

Wow, everything you ever wanted to know about a key competitor encompassed in Commissioner's Milwaukee's report and Panther's follow-up info. A great read!

[blackpantheruwm]

The better the Panthers are the better I like it. The HL needs 3 or more top 100 teams every year just to stay in the top 12 conference conversation.

Just looked at their OOC schedule. It is very solid and includes trips to Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Wish those teams would have played us. Anyway looks overall like they found quality opponents much easier than we did and lets all hope that Oakland, UWM and VU can use this season to start putting the HL back on the map.

Very few people think about this, but a team's OOC schedule is a pretty good measure of how other teams expect them to be in the upcoming season. Milwaukee's got those games, but here's the thing: Wisconsin is always on the docket, Notre Dame was so confident they'd beat us that they insisted it happen a day after a three-day tournament, and Minnesota is a road game right before Christmas. For those who aren't aware why that's relevant, it's the home team advantage. College basketball, overall, has the highest percentage of home teams winning. CBB home teams win 72% of the time over the past 25 years (it may be slightly different now). That percentage jumps to 85% in the week leading up to Christmas. I think it's because players are eager to get home and are distracted, whereas home team players know they don't have travel ahead.

Here's some fun inside info: we had a game at Illinois worked out for this season that never got signed. Why? Our coaches guess they took a hard look at our roster. As we do with other schools. Everyone does, and if they don't, it's because they're a low-major looking for a paycheck - the Presbyterians of the world.

And who do we have at home? South Dakota? SIUE? Both are return games with low-majors. The only good mid-majors on our schedule are there because of two neutral site tournaments.

You know who I can tell has a good team just by looking at their schedule? Valpo. Iona is literally the only great team you could get at home without some kind of caveat (Belmont with the clause in their associated membership). What does that say to me? Good teams don't want to risk a loss at Valpo. Even more telling? All you could get for high-majors is a pair of road games out west with Oregon and Oregon State. Both are winnable, but they're scheduled in the days leading up to Thanksgiving - again, stats show CBB teams win more at home in the days leading up to that holiday as well. But it shouldn't be surprising that the only bites you could get on your schedule are those. Iona is a real coup for scheduling, so my guess is there's some kind of relationship between staffs. The best OOC games aren't scheduled off the Basketball Travelers board.

[agibson]

College basketball, overall, has the highest percentage of home teams winning. CBB home teams win 72% of the time over the past 25 years (it may be slightly different now). That percentage jumps to 85% in the week leading up to Christmas.

Fun numbers! You're saying highest of any major sport?

I'd be curious what the numbers are like in soccer.  NCAA? Pros?

The home field advantage is certainly thought to be significant there, as well.   Maybe, with draws in soccer, it'd be hard to compare the numbers.

More parity, maybe, in NCAA soccer might keep the numbers from being as outrageous as basketball.  And the lower scores do cause more chaos.  So, even if there's a significant home-road split the percentages might not be as egregious.

[covufan]

College basketball, overall, has the highest percentage of home teams winning. CBB home teams win 72% of the time over the past 25 years (it may be slightly different now). That percentage jumps to 85% in the week leading up to Christmas.

Fun numbers! You're saying highest of any major sport?

I'd be curious what the numbers are like in soccer.  NCAA? Pros?

The home field advantage is certainly thought to be significant there, as well.   Maybe, with draws in soccer, it'd be hard to compare the numbers.

More parity, maybe, in NCAA soccer might keep the numbers from being as outrageous as basketball.  And the lower scores do cause more chaos.  So, even if there's a significant home-road split the percentages might not be as egregious.

I can't remember the article or video, but for pro sports the highest home field advantage was NBA.  What I'm remembering is several years ago, when the NHL had more unique (old) sized ice configurations.  Except for the old Chicago Stadium and old parquet of the Boston Garden, which may have had ice under the NBA floor or dead spots, almost every NBA stadium is the same.  MLB, NFL and the NHL (at that time) all had unique features that should have given the home team an advantage, but the numbers dictate otherwise.  I would guess the same for college basketball, since scheduling is controlled by the better teams, as we have found over the years.  I guess it should be referred to as "home crowd" advantage.

[blackpantheruwm]

College basketball, overall, has the highest percentage of home teams winning. CBB home teams win 72% of the time over the past 25 years (it may be slightly different now). That percentage jumps to 85% in the week leading up to Christmas.

Fun numbers! You're saying highest of any major sport?

I'd be curious what the numbers are like in soccer.  NCAA? Pros?

The home field advantage is certainly thought to be significant there, as well.   Maybe, with draws in soccer, it'd be hard to compare the numbers.

More parity, maybe, in NCAA soccer might keep the numbers from being as outrageous as basketball.  And the lower scores do cause more chaos.  So, even if there's a significant home-road split the percentages might not be as egregious.

The first time I saw it talked about was in a Sports Illustrated article in the mid-2000's. I'm trying to remember the company that did the full study - was it ELIAS or STATS Inc? I can't remember who it is that pulled it. Super interesting numbers though. The basketball numbers might have come straight from someone like KenPom or Jerry Palm.

[wh]

by Commissioner » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:22 am
Northern Kentucky
2015
13-17 Overall
7-7 Atlantic Sun (4th)
RPI #265

2016
Returns 56.3% of scoring
Returns 56.2% of rebounding

So who are the Norse?

Northern Kentucky enters the Horizon in its final "transition" year up from D-II, which basically means nothing except that the Norse are still ineligible for NCAA tournament play, which seems unlikely in any case.

The Norse were the logical candidate for Horizon expansion after the loss of Loyola. As a university, NKU is a good fit with the type of second-tier state universities (and I mean no insult by "second tier," just that they aren't the flagship schools) that make up the Horizon (it's the small private schools, Detroit and Valpo, that are now the outliers in a conference once made up of all private schools, most smaller, most tied to religious denominations). They play baseball, which the conference needed. They keep the conference's geographic footprint tight.

From the standpoint of the conference's flagship sport, men's basketball, NKU gives the Horizon a most tenuous toehold in the Cincinnati and Kentucky recruiting and fan markets (NKU's campus is closer to downtown Cincinnati than UD's is to downtown Detroit)—even if right now their presence in each is negligible. They provide a travel partner to Wright State (90 minutes away), making scheduling a bit easier and marginally reducing travel costs. The BB&T Arena is the most upscale basketball facility in the conference, even if, with seating capacity at 9400, it may seem awfully empty at times. And they desperately wanted into the Horizon. They also at least marginally advance what some people believe is the conference's long-term strategy of southern expansion. For all those reasons, the eventual addition of NKU was pretty much a given, though it happened sooner than many thought. Titan fans might have preferred another private school, a Catholic school, or an old rival –Duquesne or Evansville, for example—but there's really no indication that such schools had any interest in joining the conference.

NKU's 2014 $1.8 million basketball budget would have been the second lowest in the Horizon, ahead of only Youngstown, but it was up 16% from the year before and the Norse seem determined to be competitive. The Norse indicated their seriousness when they fired coach Dave Bezold, a local boy who was 14 years at NKU as an assistant and then 11 as head coach. Bezold averaged over 20 wins a season in 8 years as NKU's coach at the D-II level, but was just 33-54 in three seasons of D-I play. Old ties and success didn't matter--they want to win in D-I.

They made what I think is going to turn out to be a great hire, snagging John Brannen, an assistant coach at Alabama who was the Crimson's interim head coach during last year's NIT. A northern Kentucky native, Brannen played college ball at Marshall, so he knows the area. At 'Bama, Brannen was the lead recruiter for Coach Anthony Grant, and brought in some strong recruiting classes. Before that he was Grant's top recruiter at VCU, heavily credited for bringing in the 2007 and 2008 classes that Shaka Smart took to the Final Four in 2011. Brannen reinforced his rep as a recruiter by lining up 5 verbal commitments to NKU's Class of '16 within a few months of his hiring, including PF Carson Williams, who had high major offers, and another 3-star recruit in point guard Mason Faulkner. NKU could be a Horizon power much sooner than people might think.

This year, though, Brannen will have to go with what Bezold left him. And the Norse took a quick hit from that when last year's leading scorer, Atlantic Sun Freshman of the Year Tayler Persons, decided to transfer (to Ball State, of all places). Still, though the national prognosticators take the easy pick and put NKU last in the Horizon—the Horizon is a considerably stronger league than the Atlantic Sun, where the Norse went 7-7 last season—I think there is enough talent there to avoid the conference seller. The Norse return three of their top 5 scorers, plus a pair of forwards who started 19 and 22 games, respectively, and a total of 8 players who started at least 3 games.

Leading the Norse is 5th year senior Jason Billups, a second-team All-Atlantic Sun selection last year. A 6-6, 245 lb. C/PF, Billups led the nation last year in FG% at over 69%, while averaging 11.1 points and 5.9 rebounds. Essentially, he's a mirror image of Jaleel Hogan, and watching the two of them bang it out this year could be great fun.

Lining up next to Billups at PF should be either Jake Geisler, who started 22 games last season, though he averaged fewer than 15 minutes per game, or Thik Bol, a 6-8 forward who led the nation's jucos in blocked shots last season . The small forward is likely to be 6-6 Deonte Cole, who started 19 games last season, but also averaged less than 15 minutes per game (Billups, by the way, usually came off the bench last year, after starting regularly as a sophomore).

The starting guards are likely to be seniors Tyler White (10.2 ppg) and Todd Johnson (6.1 ppg). The unexpected loss of Persons leaves the Norse without a true point guard. White and Johnson are combo guards who can play the point, with Johnson likely to play there most often. Both are good three point shooters, especially Johnson. They've also got a juco transfer, LaVonne Holland, who could be in the mix.

Among the players who could help out from the bench are forward Jared Bryant and guards Dean Danos and Cole Murray, each of whom started a handful of games last season, and a couple of freshmen forwards, Drew McDonald and Brennan Gillis, who look like pretty good recruits at the Atlantic Sun level.

No one should expect too much as NKU moves up to a higher level of play, but Billups and White are solid Horizon quality starters, the Norse have some three point shooting and quite a bit of experience, and the results will probably not be as grim as some predict. In 2016 NKU exits its "transition" phase, and we'll start to see more of Brannen's impact. The future looks pretty bright.

Predicted Starters
G – Todd Johnson, 5-9 Sr., 6.1 ppg.
G – Tyler White, 6-3 Sr., 10..3 ppg
SF – Deontae Cole, 6-6 Jr., 4.0 ppg
PF- Jalen Billups, 6-6 Sr., 11.1 ppg, 5.9 rpg, .696 FG%
C- Thik Bol, 6-8 Soph, 8.9 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 4.9 bpg at Iowa Western CC

Key Reserves
PG – LaVonne Holland, 6-2 Soph.
SG – Cole Murray, 6-7 Jr., 4.0 ppg, 39.5% 3PFG%
PF – Jake Giesler, 6-7 Sr., 2.6 ppg, 3 rpg

Up Next: Oakland

[agibson]

The first time I saw it talked about was in a Sports Illustrated article in the mid-2000's. I'm trying to remember the company that did the full study - was it ELIAS or STATS Inc? I can't remember who it is that pulled it. Super interesting numbers though. The basketball numbers might have come straight from someone like KenPom or Jerry Palm.

Googling around, it looks like NCAA basketball and MLS soccer are probably neck-and-neck.  With MLS high among (relatively major?) global soccer leagues, but maybe not exceptionally so (e.g. home field advantage _used_ to be as important, or more so, in England's Premier League, but has grown less important over the years).

I wasn't able to easily find numbers on NCAA soccer.

With NCAA basketball's highly biased scheduling (teams from the big boys to Valpo scheduling cupcakes at home, maybe for different reasons), and professional soccer usually featuring unbiased schedules (like most pro sports?), it's tempting to conclude that the intrinsic factors in soccer might be more important than in NCAA basketball.

It's probably famously hard to decide exactly _why_ there's a home field advantage.

Some details below.

###

Details.

A few numbers on soccer, and comparisons.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/home-field-advantage-english-premier-league/
looks at the EPL over its whole history, which should have very close to equal schedules (play every team home and away every season).

In very rough numbers the home team wins 50%, draws 25%, and loses 25%.  The advantage has been decreasing over the years (since 1890).  Maybe current numbers are closer to 40% wins, 30% losses, 30% draws.

http://princetonsportsanalytics.com/2014/11/11/there-is-no-place-like-home/
concludes that the MLS has the biggest advantage of any major US professional sport.  Their methodology seems to be to ignored draws, so they see home teams winning twice as often as they lose (consistent with the rough EPL century-average numbers above), and give them a 67% winning percentage.  Apparently that's extremely high.  (And the scheduling should be fairly equal; it's not as simple as home-and-away every season, but it's not elective like it is in NCAA basketball.)

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/spring-2014/home-field-advantage-the-facts-and-the-fiction
looks at it across pro sports, citing MLS as particularly advantageous to the home team.  And summarizes results (across sports) as putting most of the cause on referee bias.   (They don't explain whether that's crowd-influenced bias, corruption, etc.)

http://news.discovery.com/human/why-does-home-field-advantage-matter-131004.htm
puts NCAA basketball just behind MLS for home win percentage

[agibson]

Northern Kentucky enters the Horizon in its final "transition" year up from D-II, which basically means nothing except that the Norse are still ineligible for NCAA tournament play, which seems unlikely in any case.

Will they participate in Horizon League tournaments this year?  They're doing well in women's soccer, for example.  Top of the table.  And in men's soccer, top of the table (but with a win and a loss beyond UIC and Valpo, each of those teams having two games in hand).

With women's soccer (men's too?) keeping only six teams for the tournament, it could make a difference.

Probably they won't compete?

[wh]

Re: 2015-16 Horizon League Team Previews
by Commissioner » Tue Oct 13, 2015 6:20 pm
Oakland
2015
16-17 Overall
11-5 Conference (3rd T)
RPI #171
Lost CIT 1st Round
Returns 61.8% of scoring
Returns 63.0% of rebounding

Oakland fans are some of the most aggressively optimistic in the Horizon, and that may be a reflection of their coach and their program. Coach Kampe touts his program ceaselessly, and stays relentlessly focused on the positive. For example, my guess is that most Horizon fans, and even a great many Oakland fans, would be surprised to be reminded that OU has now suffered three consecutive losing seasons. D-I newcomer Northern Kentucky is the only other Horizon school with three straight losing seasons. Even perennial bottom feeder Youngstown State and struggling UIC have had just two consecutive losing seasons. Yet it doesn't feel like that, does it? Oakland seems to be up and coming. This is not intended as criticism of OU as much as praise for their spirit and drive. But this year, OU's talk and rep may actually match up with reality.

Oakland is the trendy pick to finish second in the Horizon this year, and why not? I mean, somebody's got to finish second. It can't be Valparaiso, because they're going to finish first. It can't be Detroit, because since Valpo is finishing first, the highest you can pick Detroit is second, but Detroit always underperforms predictions, so the highest the Titans can actually finish is third. Green Bay and Cleveland State lost too much. Wright State has too far to climb, Northern Kentucky is too new, UIC too young, Youngstown State too Youngstown Statey. That leaves Oakland or Milwaukee. I'll pick Oakland. By a hair (heh).

The argument for a big season in Oakland goes like this: They've got the league's best point guard, an all-freshman forward who looks like the real deal, a quick little off-guard who just missed the all-freshman team last year, and 3—well, really 5—transfers from high major conferences, and a big freshman center who looks like the real deal. That's a potential juggernaut.

I think Oakland could indeed be very good, but also think there is a fairly likely alternative story, in which they end up the league's most disappointing team. Let's explore the possibilities.

Oakland starts with Kahlil Felder, the league's top point guard and, with Valpo's Alec Peters, the pre-season favorite for 2016 Player of the Year. Felder, I'm betting, will not be one to disappoint. Felder was second in the nation in the assists last year, and he just keeps getting better. He was better the second half of his freshman year than the first half, still better the first half of his sophomore season, and better yet at the end of last season. He's probably the quickest player in the league, which is a big reason why he gets to the foul line seemingly at will. There he knocks down 83% (giving him a league-leading 185 free throws made last year, 60 more than any other returning player). He led the league in steals, and was second in scoring behind now-departed Kiefer Sykes. Though just 5-9, he averaged nearly 5 rebounds a game. He's a solid three point shooter. Almost constantly on the floor--38.32 minutes per game, third in the nation—Felder is the perfect point guard for Greg Kampe's fast-paced, point oriented offense.

But as important as the point guard is, you've got to have four other guys on the floor, and here is where Oakland has a whole bunch of question marks. I think the odds are that a enough of those marks will yield affirmative answers to justify the second place predictions, or at least something very close to it, but there are legitimate questions nonetheless.

Much of the optimism around Oakland—the Sporting News has even predicted them for first—is built around three transfers from the Big 12—center Percy Gibson and guard Sheron Dorsey-Walker from Iowa State, and guard Martez "Mellonhead" Walker from Texas. But if there is one thing Horizon fans should have learned by now, it's that the ability to sit on the bench in a "Big 5" conference is no guarantee a player will star in the Horizon.

The one most likely to star is the aptly nicknamed "Mellonhead" Walker. He's the most talented of the three, and the one who has distinguished himself on the court in college. The Pershing High grad is a high energy player with a nice shooting stroke. As a freshman at Texas in 2013-14, Walker started out like most freshman, averaging just 6 minutes per game through the Longhorns' first 12 contest. But hit PT kept increasing, and by Texas's last 5 games Walker averaged 21.6 minutes, 11.8 points, and 4.5 rebounds per game, including scoring 30 points in two NCAA tournament games.

The problem is, it is still unclear if Walker will even play, and if so, if he can keep himself clean and academically eligible. Walker left Texas in the fall of 2014 after being arrested and charged with assault for beating his girl friend. Oakland took him in, with Walker paying his own way to attend last spring. Then, this summer it came out in the Chronicle of Higher Education that Walker had been caught cheating on an exam during his freshman year. One gets the impression that Walker was a spoiled kid, out of control, thinking no rules applied to him. I'm not against second chances, and Kampe has had success with such reclamation projects before. Presumably Walker will be on a short leash. But first, he's got to be eligible at all. He's likely out at least till fall semester ends, just on the basis of routine transfer rules. As I have often noted, the mid-season transfer is a tough feat. You enter your first game of the season after other players have played 8 or 10 games. Sure, you've been practicing, but your timing, your feel is often off, even if just a little. A lot of mid-season transfers take a while to really hit stride—think our Chris Jenkins, or Valpo's Keith Carter. I think Kampe lets Walker play; I think the NCAA lets him play; and I think he becomes a very good player in the Horizon, perhaps even a dominant one, in 2017 and 2018. But I'm much less sure he'll be a major factor in 2016.

Percy Gibson is a wide-bodied center (6-9, 271 lbs.) who will take over for two-time all-conference selection (second team) Corey Petros for a year. Gibson never quite got over the hump at Iowa State. After a reasonable freshman year in which he appeared in 29 games, averaging 4.8 points and 2 rebounds, as a soph he averaged just 4.5 points and 2.6 rebounds, with his FG% plummeting from 66% to 49%. Then he pretty much disappeared as a junior, playing just 71 minutes all season. The Titans tried to get him but he chose OU as a transfer destination. Gibson is a good shot blocker, but we'll just have to see what he does at OU. I doubt that he will equal the departed Petros's 14 points and 8 rebounds a game, but if he averages 8 and 6 the Grizzlies should be fine. I'm not sure he hits 8 and 6—like I said, riding the pine in the Big 12 doesn't make you an automatic force in the Horizon –but my best guess is that he'll do that or more and be pretty good, at least adequate.

As for Sharon Dorsey-Walker, it's been nearly four years since he saw any regular game action. He was redshirted as a freshman in 2013, played a total of 115 minutes in 20 games in 2014, and played just 39 minutes last year before it became apparent he had no real future as a rotation player at Iowa State. Dorsey-Walker is another smooth player, a teammate of Felder and Walker at Pershing, and it could be he'll be a very solid Horizon player, along the lines of Chris Jenkins. Dorsey-Walker had offers from Michigan, Minnesota, Temple, and other power schools out of Pershing, so his recruitment by Iowa State was no fluke, but he's yet to show a thing at the collegiate level. For reasons which seem inexplicable to the naked eye but presumably are buried in the application filed with the NCAA, the NCAA gave Dorsey-Walker immediate eligibility, requiring him to sit just one semester (last spring) even though he played last fall semester at Iowa State. So he'll be eligible immediately, which will help.

If these three all pan out as OU fans dream, Oakland will indeed be a powerful team this year. But it's easy to see a scenario where none of them do much, and then you've got a team that was 16-17 a year ago and loses its top rebounder and number two scorer in Petros, and its best defensive player and number three scorer in Dante Williams. The most likely scenario is somewhere in the middle, in which case Oakland could still be very solid and a reasonable choice for second place, but also for 4th or 5th place.

Besides the three new Big 12 transfers, OU has two other high majors transfers they're still waiting on. The more intriguing is forward Tommie McCune, another Kampe rehab project who was kicked off the team at West Virginia after a conviction for using a stolen credit card. But that wasn't what got him kicked off the Mountaineers squad. Rather, McCune was twice suspended by Huggins for team rules violations, and—probably worse from Huggins' standpoint—he simply didn't deliver on the court. Kampe gave him a shot, but during his transfer redshirt year Kampe booted McCune from the team for undisclosed violations of "team policy." Anyway, when Bob Huggins and Greg Kampe won't have you, it's almost certainly you who is the problem. Most figured that would be all for the former Top 100 recruit, and it would have been easy to see McCune, who had a pretty rough upbringing, fade into street life. But to the surprise of many, McCune stayed enrolled at OU, worked hard, kept his nose clean and his grades up, and was eventually rewarded with one more chance. In two years playing at OU, McCune has shown occasional flashes of excellence. In OU's first 5 games last year, he averaged 16 points and 6 rebounds, including a 27 point game against Western Michigan. But his productivity and playing time decreased as the year went on, and he ended up averaging just 6 points and 4 rebounds a game, scoring in double figures just once after December 16. The talent is there—in the 2014 season he hit double figures in consecutive games at UCLA, Cal, and Gonzaga, and had a 23 point, 8 rebound effort at Cleveland State. But whether he can play that way for a full season remains questionable. Further, McCune did not play on Oakland's summer trip to Spain, apparently as punishment for some other team rules violation, and that's not a good sign for guy with his history.

The final big transfer is the exquisitely-named Max Hooper, who joined the team last year with two years immediate eligibility after graduating from St. John's in three years. Hooper was supposed to be the big three-point artist, and he did hit a very respectable 37.7% last year, but he didn't remind anyone of Travis Bader. When he's on he can be quite good. For example, last year he hit 11 of 20 three point attempts and scored a total of 36 points in back-to-back games against UIC and Wright State, and hit 7 three pointers for a season-high 21 points against a good Georgia State team early in the year. But Hooper had too many 0-5, 2-7, 1-5 and 3-10 shooting nights to have much value, especially since he doesn't do anything else. He is a rock on defense—meaning he doesn't move his feet and sits there while the players go by—and 159 of his 167 field goal attempts came from behind the arc. Cut to the basket? Not his thing. Drive the lane? Um... No. Pass? He had more turnovers than assists, a very bad thing for a guard. Kampe is very good at using catch and shoot three-point specialists, so maybe he'll get more from Hooper this year. But Hooper shot very poorly on the Spain trip (4-19 in the team's first two games).

The advantage to having so many question marks is that it is likely that a least a couple will pan out,. Meanwhile, besides Felder, OU has some other talent, notably redshirt sophomores Nick Daniels and Jalen Hayes. Daniels hit 49% of his three point attempts last year, and had 8 games scoring in double figures despite missing five games with a foot injury. I expect Daniels will start at guard—at least to open the season—but that gives Oakland a very small backcourt and Walker (once eligible) or Dorsey-Walker could well take his place, though all should see considerable action. Hayes, meanwhile, is a 6-7 forward who was six-times the Horizon freshman of the week last year. Hayes got better as the year went on, and looks poised for a huge season in 2016.

Another sophomore who provides depth is Femi Olujobi, a 6-8 power forward. Olujobi got a few starts early in the season but saw just 45 minutes total action in conference play. Too early to give up on him, though. More promising is 6-11 freshman center Brad Brechting. Brechting is the kind of center Horizon teams don't sign all that often, I thought a real good signing at the time. Still, most folks thought he would see little action as a freshman, and possibly be redshirted. But Brechting played very well in Spain, leading Kampe to pronounce him a member of the rotation. We will see. The plan clearly is for Gibson to hold down the fort for a year and Brechting to start after that, but if Gibson disappoints and Brechting continues to play well, OU could be starting a freshman at center by year end. Another freshman who might contribute is Xavier Hill-Maas, a 6-7, 260 lb. forward from North Carolina.

So you see that Oakland has size, depth (except at the point, where once again there is no solid backup for Felder, who, fortunately for OU, is both durable and not prone to fouling), and three point shooting. Hooper hits his threes, McCune blossoms, the three new transfers perform, Hayes becomes an all-conference contender, Brechting contributes, and this is a powerhouse. But all of those things are problematic—it could be none come true, and then this is a pretty average team. Somewhere in between is most likely--enough should pan out to make Oakland a good team this year. Second place is certainly reasonable, and who else is it gonna be? The one asterisk—if Felder goes down with injury, it's a disaster for Oakland. But Felder is one tough young man.

Before we go, a word about Oakland's schedule. OU is famous for playing rough non-conference schedules. Under the RPI formula, that can boost your own RPI—a road loss to a top 20 team can do more for you than a home win over a MEAC or OVC opponents, but if you don't win those games it actually hurts the other teams in your conference. I'm not going to go through the numbers here, just trust me on this. So Oakland's kamikaze schedules have done the Horizon no favors. This year OU has scaled it back a bit. Not as much as some think—they've still got 4 games against teams with top 40 RPIs last year. The big difference is that Northern Kentucky has replaced two payday games for Oakland. But if OU gels early, they could get some real mileage from this year's schedule. They play at Washington in December, and that's a winnable game against a Power 5 conference team that will have a decent RPI. Colorado State should be a good RPI game, but the Rams, despite last year's #29 RPI, just don't put fear into you like a game with Arizona or something. Georgia, #38 a year ago, also seems like at least a possible upset, unlike Virginia, whom the Grizzlies also play. I expect the Griz to get whupped by Michigan State, but the game is at the Palace this year, not in East Lansing, and maybe they can pull off the upset. Oakland is the only Horizon team playing an all-DI schedule this year, but the bottom part of that schedule is so weak that may have done better – for their own RPI – to have played Rochester OU's schedule. Binghamton, Troy, Chicago State, and either Florida A&M or Abilene Christian all had RPIs over 300 last year; Southern Illinois was #278. But that's not bad for the rest of the league, as OU's non-conference record this year should be quite a bit better than in recent years, even if they lose all their "power" games. Oakland has just 3 non-con games at the McRena: Chicago State, Binghamton, and Eastern Michigan. Scheduling home games gets harder and harder for mid-majors.

Probable Starters
PG – Kahlil Felder, 5-9 Jr., 18.6 ppg, 7.6 apg (2nd in nation); 4.8 rpg, 2.0 spg.
SG – Nick Daniels 6-1 Soph., 6.3 ppg, .486 3PFG%.
F – Tommie McCune, 6-8 Sr., 6.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg.
F – Jalen Hayes, 6-7 Soph., 8.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg.
C – Percy Gibson, 6-9 Sr., 1.2 ppg, 1.4 rpg at Iowa State in 2014

Other Key Players
G – Martez Walker, 6-4 Soph., 4.7 ppg, 2.3 rpg at Texas in 2014
G – Sherron Dorsey-Walker, 6-3 Jr., 1.2 ppg at Iowa State in 2014.
G – Max Hooper, 6-4 Sr., 5.9 ppg, .377 3PFG%
F – Femi Olujobi, 6-8 Soph., 1.7 ppg, 1.6 rpg
C – Brad Brechting, 6-11 Fr.

Note: I look for Martez Walker to replace McCune or Daniels in the lineup once he's eligible and has played a couple games.

[historyman]

Oakland dreams of beating Valpo. I think they will beat Valpo twice but lose to the 4 majors they play plus 4 or 5 of their conference games. Valpo will not lose any other conference games except to Oakland.

[a3uge]

Re: 2015-16 Horizon League Team Previews
by Commissioner » Tue Oct 13, 2015 6:20 pm
Oakland
2015
16-17 Overall
11-5 Conference (3rd T)
RPI #171
Lost CIT 1st Round
Returns 61.8% of scoring
Returns 63.0% of rebounding

Oakland fans are some of the most aggressively optimistic in the Horizon, and that may be a reflection of their coach and their program.

Could have said "completely delusional" but that works too.

[hailcrusaders]

How many Walkers are there in this league?

[blackpantheruwm]

Tommie McCune is out.

[justducky]

Tommie McCune is out.

Wouldn't be a shock but what are the details?

[Commissioner]

Just a couple notes on Milwaukee, responding to a few of Panther U's comments:

It should also be noted that when Commissioner's preview went up, we had no idea that Austin Arians (11.1 ppg) would be out for the season.
* * *
Also, Akeem Springs spent two months playing with a broken hand that a trainer had diagnosed as a sprain.
* * *
I only bring these up because a lot of our fans' hopes for the season wouldn't have been as high without the two guys expected to create 90% of our scoring on the wing.

Here Panther U seems to suggest that Milwaukee underperformed last year (at least per Milwaukee fan expectations) because of injuries. Well, no. Milwaukee hardly suffered an injury-free year, and obviously would have been better without those injuries, but life wasn't so bad. Basically, they lost Arians for the year, and Springs missed two games and playing hurt in some others. That's not an unusual or particularly unlucky year. Injuries are part of the game. You guys, after all, lost Lexus Williams for the season and Keith Carter for a substantial part. You had more injury issues last year than Milwaukee. My Titans lost Patrick Onwenu, our main inside guy, minutes into the first game of the year. Wright State suffered far more injuries than Milwaukee, losing JT Yoho, Kendall Griffin, and Steve Davis for basically all the conference season, and watching Joe Thomasson and Reggie Arceneaux play hurt much of the year. UIC lost their best big man, McClellan, for a good stretch, and lost their starting point guards right out of the gate.  Cleveland State was without Charlie Lee and Marlin Mason for stretches. It wasn't a good year for Milwaukee on the injury front, but it wasn't an unusually bad year, either.

Ken Pomeroy ranked Milwaukee as the 75th luckiest team in the nation last year, that is to say, in the top 25 percent for "luckiness." (By comparison, the Titans were the 204th luckiest team (i.e. they were unlucky); Valparaiso 58th; Green Bay 100th; Oakland 136th). In other words, the stats say that the Panthers' 14-16 finish last season was no fluke—if anything, it was slightly better than the team really played.

Luck is whatever. Maryland was one of the "luckiest" teams in the NCAA last year. Duke, the national champions, were the 37th luckiest team in Division I. National runner-up Wisconsin was 145th luckiest. It's a meaningless stat.

It's meaningless only if you don't know what it means. To say Duke was luckier than Wisconsin is not to say that Duke wasn't better than Wisconsin, or didn't beat Wisconsin, or didn't deserve to beat Wisconsin. It's to say that if you could rerun the season with the same players, schedule, injuries, etc., Wisconsin would be more likely to do better than they did in the actual year than would Duke. Or, within the Horizon, if we could replay last season, Detroit would be more likely to improve than Valpo. That doesn't mean Detroit would be better than Valpo, not by a long shot. Far from being meaningless, however, "luck" is a pretty predictor of whether a team is likely to get better or worse if they kept all the same personnel. Of course teams change personnel and players get better (or sometimes worse), there are more less injuries, etc. But basically, this is saying that when Milwaukee finished 14-16, it wasn't because they got some bad breaks--bad calls, a shot that rattled out at the buzzer, a freak bounce that caused them to lose a game, etc. What it says is that they really were a 14-16 team (or worse). So if you want to think about Milwaukee getting better, you start by recognizing that they were not a bad bounce or two away from being 17-13 last year. In truth, the opposite is more likely--they were a lucky bounce or two (or referee's call, or shot) away from having a poorer record than 14-16. If you want to ignore that in predicting them forward, fine, but it's not that the stat is meaningless, it just means you don't know what it means or how to use it.

Milwaukee loses just one important player, but that loss is a big one—its best player, Steve McWhorter, who played the most important position, point guard. On the other hand, they get back redshirt junior small forward Austin Arians, who missed last season with an ankle injury. That swap seems unlikely to make Milwaukee better, so they have to hope for improvement elsewhere.

Comparing McWhorter to Arians is an odd one considering they're completely different players, but I understand he's talking about scoring.

Actually, I'm not comparing McWhorter to Arians, and I'm not talking about scoring. I'm saying that if you take last year's Milwaukee team, subtract McWhorter and add Arians, do you have a better team? I think the answer is pretty clearly "no." So if the Panthers are going to move from 14-16 to something remotely resembling contention, you've got to figure out where they're going to get better. Adding Arians back in doesn't do it.

"The small forward should be Arians, a catch and shoot guy who cuts and moves well without the ball and plays solid defense. I like Arians, but again, I think Milwaukee fans tend to think a bit too highly of him. As a sophomore in 2014 he averaged 11.1 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 36.7% from the three. That's good for a small forward but nothing special. Moreover, his numbers dropped in conference play, where he scored in single digits, and his three point shooting fell to a pretty mediocre 33 percent. Like Tiby and Panoske, he's a good foul shooter. After a year off he'll probably be a bit rusty to start, but I expect he'll be performing at or near 100% by the time conference play begins. How good is that? If all goes well for Milwaukee, Arians will contest for second team all-conference honors. But the wiser Panther fan will temper expectations. I see him as a good player but not a likely recipient of post-season honors."

I don't understand this. So Arians, as a sophomore, scored 11.1 points per game. He has a full year redshirt year in between, and he's "not a likely recipient of post-season honors." The only reason I don't see him getting post-season honors is if he doesn't improve at all or only a tiny bit. And if he averages 11-12 points and 4-5 rebounds, he'd be a shoo-in for 3rd team all-conference. Oh wait, we don't have a 3rd team. (ghostofdylan and I on the UWMFreak board have long held the Horizon League limiting all-conference honors to two teams stops a bunch of worthy players from being honored. We don't even have honorable mention!)

Case closed, right? We don't have a 3rd team all-conference. Arians is not a strong candidate for all-conference honors. But I chuckle at this too because Panther fans before last season were asserting that he was clearly one of the 10 best players in the league. I remember thinking that I could name 10 better players off the top of my head. Same this year. Some Panthers are touting him as POY. Really? It still isn't hard to name 10 better players in the league: Fouse, Tiby, Peters, Fernandez, Carter, 2 Walkers, Felder, Thomasson, Yoho, Bass, and Hain are all better players than Arians. You could add some others to that list who are at least as likely to contend for all-conference honors--Jalen Hayes, Nick Daniels, Andre Yates, Tai Odiase, Carrington Love, maybe even guys like Jalen Billups of NKU, Skara, Adekoya, Lexus, Grant Benzinger, Michael Karena, the OU transfers. It's worth noting I've yet to see Arians appear on anyone's pre-season all-conference team. Maybe Arians will improve enough to pass some of these guys. But maybe not.

Arians was how we were beating Villanova as late as we were in our NCAA Tournament game in March '14. This is a kid who went from 6.6 ppg as a freshman to 11.1 as a sophomore and then got a whole year to just focus on his game.

Yeah, he's a good player, I think I made that clear. But lots of guys show that kind of improvement from freshman to sophomore year. Meanwhile, there is very little evidence that players get better with a redshirt year in the middle of their careers, and pretty good evidence that it takes them a while to get back into the groove of actual game situations.

I'm a fan, and therefore I'm very biased. But I think Commissioner's strong dislike for Milwaukee is causing him to short change Arians here.

That's what Milwaukee fans said last year, too. But as Bogey's Rick Blaine replied when the lugubrious human smuggler Ugarte asked "you despise me, don't you?": "Well, if I gave you any thought I probably would." I don't dislike Milwaukee. I know it's harder for most people to face indifference than dislike, but they just don't get me worked up either way. I'm sorry I'm not wetting my pants about Arians. Valpo? I dislike (and respect) you guys.  OU I dislike. Milwaukee? Meh.

I think we'll challenge for a title, because I think while our front court is fairly thin, so is everyone else's.

The teams most people are listing 1-2, Oakland & the Crusaders, have considerable depth up front.  I'd say several other teams have more depth of front, too, but that doesn't mean they'll be better than Milwaukee.

Valpo preview is up, by the way. You all should like it well enough.