Horizon League
This conference has a bunch of new coaches with Detroit, UW Green Bay, IU Indy (formerly IUPUI), Wright State, and Youngstown State all making offseason changes.
Detroit’s 1-31 record was the worst in college basketball last season. Michigan State assistant coach Mark Montgomery will look to turn things around. Five of last season’s top six scorers are gone from a team that was 327th in points scored on a per possession basis and 359th in points allowed on a per possession basis.
Oakland defeated Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament last season, but the team’s top four scorers from a season ago are gone.
IU-Indy, which is 14-79 over the past three seasons, looks to Division II University of Indianapolis coach Paul Corsaro to turn around a team that returns zero minutes from last year’s team.
For the first time since the 2004-05 and 05-06 seasons, the UW Milwaukee Panthers have back-to-back 20-plus win seasons. Bart Lundy has the team playing fast, ranking in the top 45 in possessions per game each of the past two seasons in a conference that had four of the top 68 teams in total possessions per game last season.
Fort Wayne was 13th in the country in turnovers forced on a per possession basis and brings back its top two scorers from last season. The team ranked second in the conference in total possessions per game.
Wright State was the fastest team in the conference, but the program replaced coach Scott Nagy with Clint Sargent, who has been with the program since 2016. Wright State was 341st in points allowed on a per possession basis and 352nd in opponent field goal shooting percentage. But the team was third in the nation in points scored on a per possession basis in games played away from home, with its 52.1% road field goal shooting percentage leading the country.
Youngstown State promoted assistant Ethan Faulkner after Jerrod Calhoun bolted to Utah State. The Penguins have had at least a .545 winning percentage in each of the past five seasons, despite having a winning percentage below that mark each of the previous 18 seasons.
UW Green Bay becomes the first program in college basketball history to have a head coach that also hosts a daily radio show at the same time, as the team hired Doug Gottlieb. It was a puzzling move, but he did add Isaiah Miranda, a consensus top-150 recruit in the 2022 freshman class.
