Horizon Notebook: Regular Season Ends In Style

What a super weekend in the Horizon, even better than advertised.  This writer got to see five of the teams over this special weekend (one twice), and enjoy two absolutely titillating games.

First on Thursday, this writer was courtside at the ARC in Valparaiso, where after Valpo’s tucked in 1-1-3 zone earned the Crusaders a 19-11 lead half way through the first half, their abandonment of that defense allowed Cleveland State to run by them the rest of the night, led by J’Nathan Bullock and George Tandy.  Bullock’s 25 points (on 9-11) and six rebounds, and Tandy’s 15 (on 6-8) and six boards of his own led CSU to a 71-64 victory, one not nearly as close as the final score indicated.

Then CSU continued to Indy, where Butler awaited needing Saturday’s game for the regular season title.  Eliminated from contention for the second seed double bye by Green Bay’s win over Detroit Thursday night, CSU was competing for the third seed along with Wright State, i.e., to avoid the no. 1 seed in the conference tourney until the final game.  The Vikes ultimately backed into that spot despite WSU’s win, when Valpo held off Youngstown State.  It was a game at Butler’s pace – slow, and mostly in the half court – but as they did in Cleveland in December, the Vikes played more solid and less gambling defense against Butler then they did against most other opponents this year.  Still, they found themselves down 50-40 at the 10:30 mark of the second half.

But a 12-0 CSU run would follow, that included two shocking treys by Cedric Jackson (11 points in the game on 4-11 and 2-4) giving the Vikes a 52-50 lead at 15:15.  They still led by 2 at 56-54 after Jackson curled from the baseline into the lane, received a pass, drew help defense, and found Tandy for a lay up with a pretty bounce pass at 17:56.  However, the final 2:04 was unkind to the Vikings, featuring a costly Jackson turnover, a terrific offensive board and follow basket by Butler’s freshman point guard Ronald Nored, and a disputed non-foul call when Butler’s Matt Howard jumped a screen to pressure Norris Cole’s three-point attempt at 19:57.  Thus, Butler survived CSU by 2 for the second time this season.

But the best game of the weekend (maybe of the year in the conference) was Green Bay against Wright State in Dayton, tipping 5 hours after the issue was decided in Indy (and on this writer’s route home from Indy back to Cleveland).  By the time the game tipped, Green Bay was locked into the second seed, and thus was able to rest injured senior swing man Terry Evans.  Wright State, on the other hand, was playing for third if YSU cooperated in Valpo.

Still, even without Evans, Green Bay was better at every position on the floor, likely including conference co-leading scorer Ryan Tillema, starting for Evans (28 points this night on 10-17 and 5-8, and 9 boards), over ever-improving Todd Brown (19 on 7-15 and an all-important 5-5 from the line).  And in a game played almost as hard as that final regular season NFL game last year between the Giants and the Patriots, Wright State used America’s best fundamental man-to-man defense to come back against Green Bay time and time again.  Then, at the end, after a traditional three-point play by Green Bay’s Troy Cotton (22 points in the game on 9-14 and 3-6, and 3 assists) gave the Phoenix a one point lead at 19:44, diminutive WSU guard N’gai Evans did his best 7-second imitation of UCLA’s Tyus Edney, took the ball end to end and scored under pressure at 19:51, giving the undermanned Raiders a 65-64 win.  After that incredible performance, it hardly mattered that Valpo held off YSU, keeping the Raiders out of the third seed.

Elsewhere this weekend, Illinois-Chicago held off the Ramblers at Loyola Friday night 62-58, a result that guaranteed YSU the sixth seed and a home tourney game despite the Penguins’ two losses in Indiana.  Back on Saturday, improving Valpo’s home win over YSU was by the score of 67-59.  And Detroit played Wisconsin-Milwaukee tough at home before falling to the Panthers, 68-63.

That leads us to the conference tournament, beginning with 4 games on campus sites tomorrow evening.  In the 3-10 game in Cleveland, CSU hosts the Detroit Titans.  In the 4-9 game in Dayton, those WSU Raiders will rely on their superb defense against Valpo.  In the 5-8 game, Loyola travels up the road apace to Milwaukee to face the Panthers.  And in what may be the best match-up in the opening round, in the 6-7 game that this writer will attend, Jimmy Collins’ UIC team with wins at Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt visits Youngstown State, a team that beat the Flames in both regular season meetings.  Then on Friday night at Hinkle, the winner of CSU-Detroit faces the winner of UIC-YSU, and the winner of WSU-Valpo will play the winner of Milwaukee-Loyola.

So on the heels of one great week in the Horizon, tomorrow night we start another!

Horizon News and Notes

• Today the Horizon League announced all-conference and other award winners, as follows. All-League Second Team designees were Todd Brown of Wright State, Rahmon Fletcher of Green Bay, Urule Igbavboa of Valpo, Tone Boyle of Milwaukee, and Cedric Jackson of CSU. While I saw Milwaukee the least of any team this year (just once in person), with the emergence of James Eayrs as the Panthers’ best player the second half of the year, I don’t fully understand Boyle being designated. And having seen as many as 20 Cleveland State games, I don’t consider Cedric Jackson anything like a good defender (the steals stat be damned), and with his poor perimeter shooting and inconsistent temperament, respectfully I don’t understand his selection for the second team.
• The All-League First Team designees are CSU’s J’Nathan Bullock, Green Bay’s Ryan Tillema, UIC’s Josh Mayo, and Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward, both of Butler. Howard was named Player of the Year. As much as this writer enjoyed Butler and Matt Howard this year, given that the Bulldogs had to survive Howard’s all-too-frequent foul trouble, and that Howard had much more help on his team than Bullock had on his, I’d have given the Player of the Year nod to Bullock.
• The All-Newcomer Team includes Butler’s Hayward and Shelvin Mack, Milwaukee’s Boyle and Eayrs, and DeAndre Mays of YSU. Gordon Hayward won Newcomer of the Year in a walk.
• The All-Defensive Team included Green Bay’s Terry Evans (last year’s Defender of the Year), UIC big man Scott Vandermeer, Wright State’s superb defensive guard Will Graham, Butler’s Howard, and Cleveland State’s Jackson, with Jackson winning Defender of the Year.
  Readers of this space know I’d eliminate both Jackson and Evans from Defender of the Year consideration because of their incessant reaching and lunging; and respectfully, in naming Jackson Defender of the Year the Horizon coaches joined last year’s Colonial Athletic Association voters in wrongly equating steals with good defense (so often they indicate quite the opposite). And with a gun to his head, I suspect CSU Coach Gary Waters would admit that Jackson isn’t even his team’s best defender (both D’Aundray Brown and Norris Cole are much better). I’d have made Will Graham defender of the Year after holding Josh Mayo scoreless for most of Wright State’s home win over UIC, and defending without all that silly reaching and lunging, put Norris Cole on the team in lieu of Jackson, and but for D’Aundray Brown having missed nearly 7 weeks with an injury, I’d have chosen him over Evans.
• Finally, Butler’s Brad Stevens was named Coach of the Year.  And oddly, while this writer will be voting for Stevens, among the 10 nominees, as Henry Iba Award Winner (for National Coach of the Year), as super a job as Stevens does, I’d have given the nod in our league to the “other Brad,” WSU’s Brad Brownell.  Tied for third in the league with his best and toughest two players hurt, a skilled but inexperienced (and early on, not tough enough) Todd Brown, defender Will Graham, and a bunch of non-Division I players.  In an impromptu post-game following WSU’s rousing win Saturday night, after the other writers asked questions and Brownell turned to me, I just told him that I thought he’d been doing it with mirrors all year long, wished him luck tomorrow night against Valpo, and told him to “bring those mirrors” along with him Friday night to Indy.