The Horizon League was supposed to slip a little bit this season without Butler, but really the league has survived and thrived even. Horizon teams are a combined 47-4 at home this season and the league has a number of quality teams, including Valparaiso and Detroit. While it’s a one-bid league, the team that gets the bid will be battle tested.
Ten thousand sims of league play lead to a similar conclusion. More than 26% of the simulations ended in at least a two-time tie. There were two cases when six teams tied for the title and a 125 times (1.3%) at least four teams tied for first place. It sounds like the Horizon League office is going to have their work cut out for them come the conference tournament in March.
The most likely winner of the league title? Valparaiso. The Crusaders are 10-4 and definitely the Horizon’s best team (though Detroit fans might bristle at that assumption). Bryce Drew’s team has something to hang their hat on too with wins over Kent St. and Murray State. The rest of the league is no slouch either. Loyola (IL) just beat DePaul, Green Bay beat Marquette and North Dakota St. and Detroit beat Akron and Canisius. That’s why Valpo won the league title 48% of the time and the outright title just 31% of the time.
Here are the percentage of times a team won the league title. The outright league title percentage is in parentheses.
- Valparaiso – 48% (31%)
- Detroit – 39% (23%)
- Youngstown St. – 15% (7%)
- UIC – 10% (4%)
- Wright St. – 8% (3%)
- Green Bay – 7% (3%)
- Loyola (IL) – 5% (2%)
- Cleveland St. – 2% (0.6%)
The only team in the Horizon League that didn’t win the title at least once was Milwaukee. The Panthers have really struggled this season and are just 4-10, though they did beat Davidson at the beginning of the season. Rob Jeter’s team went winless 9% of the time in conference play. It’s not likely, but possible. On the other hand, there were just 20 total cases of a team finishing 16-0 (13 by Valpo, 7 by Detroit). Considering how well this league protects home court, I can’t imagine it happening.
What’s the most impressive thing to me though is how many teams have a legitimate shot at winning the league title. Even the Vikings with a 2% chance have a chance to be No. 1 when conference play wraps up. It’s the sort of wide open league that makes every game important. Horizon League play starts Wednesday. You can watch online and you’ll certainly want to.
Finally, here are the projected number of league wins for each team out to one decimal place.
- Valparaiso – 10.8
- Detroit – 10.4
- Youngstown St. – 9.1
- UIC – 8.5
- Wright St. – 8.3
- Green Bay – 8.1
- Loyola (IL) – 7.8
- Cleveland St. – 6.8
- Milwaukee – 2.2
For all of your tempo-free Horizon League news throughout the season I’d recommend checking out Horizon League Hoops.
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