Sponsor-A-Writer In addition to donating to the HoriZone Roundtable using the form below, you can also send money to individual writers. Kyle Rossi ([email protected] – PayPal)Greg KulaE…

Columnists We are seeking writers for each of the Horizon League’s member schools, as well as general assignment writers who are interested in covering any team. Candidates should be availabl…

Hi all, Horizon Boy here! You all know, or should know, how passionate I am about #HLMBBFashion. What better time of the year for our Horizon League coaches to showcase their individualities and get us pumped for the start of the season than Halloween! Thus, I felt it crucial to write about what every Horizon League coach should dress up as this year.

Julie Roe Lach will be departing as commissioner of the Horizon League for an Executive VP role with Pacers Sports and Entertainment, and in this bonus episode, Bob and Jim lay out some of what the new commissioner will need to tackle, as well as look at some possible candidates for the job.

Kiefer Haffey is a Southeast Michigan lifer who understands how fortunate he is to be the new head coach at Detroit Mercy. “There are not a lot of opportunities where you get to be a Division I head coach,” he said. “I grew up 15 minutes away from our campus. My wife has a job 40 minutes from our campus. My family is from Novi, which is again, 15 or 20 minutes from the campus.”

INDIANAPOLIS (October 16, 2025) – Following more than a decade creating major impact and positioning the Horizon League to thrive in a dynamic college sports environment, including nearly five years i...

Bob, Jim and Kyle dive in to recap all the previews from Preview Week, and in this episode, they discuss the following teams, and much more! Cleveland State (WBB) Robert Morris (MBB) Green Bay (WBB) Milwaukee (MBB) Subscribe: ⁠⁠horizoneroundtable.com/subscribe⁠⁠ Donate: ⁠⁠horizoneoundtable.com/donate⁠⁠ Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/horizoneroundtable

Bob, Jim and Kyle dive in to recap all the previews from Preview Week, and in this episode, they discuss the following teams: Northern Kentucky (WBB) Detroit Mercy MBB) Detroit Mercy (WBB) Cleveland State (MBB) Youngstown State (WBB) Purdue Fort Wayne (MBB) Robert Morris (WBB) Oakland (MBB) Purdue Fort Wayne (WBB) Youngstown State (MBB) Subscribe: ⁠⁠horizoneroundtable.com/subscribe⁠⁠ Donate: ⁠⁠horizoneoundtable.com/donate⁠⁠ Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/horizoneroundtable

Bob, Jim and Kyle dive in to recap all the previews from Preview Week, and in this episode, they discuss the following teams: Oakland (WBB) IU Indy (MBB) IU Indy (WBB) Wright State (MBB) Wright State (WBB) Green Bay (MBB) Milwaukee (WBB) Northern Kentucky (MBB) Subscribe: ⁠horizoneroundtable.com/subscribe⁠ Donate: ⁠horizoneoundtable.com/donate⁠ Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/horizoneroundtable

Though she’s only 35 years old, Chandler McCabe has already seen a lot of places and done a lot of things. Originally from Orlando, the Robert Morris head coach won a state championship at Bishop Moore High School in 2008 before heading north to play college basketball at Providence. After graduation, she launched her career on the bench (and earned a master’s degree) at Henderson State in Arkansas, then followed that up with stints at Bethune-Cookman and George Mason, before stopping back in her hometown, at Central Florida, for a season.

Columnists We are seeking writers for each of the Horizon League’s member schools, as well as general assignment writers who are interested in covering any team. Candidates should be availabl…

Over the past three years, Milwaukee’s ascension back to the upper ranks of the Horizon League during the Bart Lundy era has been no accident. The Panthers have excelled in making key pick-ups in the off-season that have best matched their style of play. And while the ultimate goal, namely a spot in the NCAA Tournament, hasn’t materialized yet, UWM has still consistently been in the conversation, and most certainly will this season as well.

Normally, when a team loses 85% of its scoring and minutes played, that team is likely to be projected to be towards the bottom of a conference. Those teams aren’t Green Bay, though. Instead, for the Phoenix, it will be another season with a loaded non-conference schedule and the expectation, not goal, of winning the league and returning to the NCAA Tournament for a third straight season.

Robert Morris comes into 2025-26 with plenty to prove. After capturing the Horizon League regular season title last season with a 15-5 conference mark and an overall 26-9 record, the Colonials are now aiming to defend that top spot and make a deeper postseason run. Last season, RMU was among the better scoring teams in the league, averaging 77.0 points per game while holding opponents to 71.0 PPG.

Chris Kielsmeier has no idea what the outside expectations concerning his 2025-26 Cleveland State team are likely to be. That’s not to say that he doesn’t know what they might be, he just isn’t sure which well-worn narrative will take hold before the ball is tipped in November. And there are several. Such are the fickle nature of expectations, unscientific calculations that attempt to synthesize known pieces of information, like a team’s recent performance and lists of incoming and outgoing student-athletes, then produce a guide to the unknowable.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, for Youngstown State, the more things change, the more things stay the same. And in the case of the Penguins in recent years, that’s been a very good thing. The head coaching transition from Jerrod Calhoun, who was hired by Utah State, to Ethan Faulkner was rather seamless last season, as YSU won 21 games, extending a streak of seasons of 20-plus wins to three, and finishing in fourth place in the Horizon League.

Trying to follow up the historic season that was the 2024-25 season for the Mastodons may be considered an insurmountable feat to most Division I programs. The Mastodons set the program record for conference wins (18), overall wins (27), highest conference regular season finish (2nd), highest conference tournament finish (2nd), longest winning streak (17), defeated every conference foe at least once, and had the NCAA leader in 3PT% and FT%.

A year ago at this time, the Golden Grizzlies were the hunted. Coming off of a championship season and a Cinderella moment, the rest of the league wanted what Oakland had. Now, the script has flipped. Oakland saw a 16-18 (11-9) campaign end up in a Horizon League sixth seed in 2024-2025, with the Golden Grizzlies falling short in the tournament semifinals to eventual tournament champion Robert Morris.

RMU women’s basketball enters the 2025-26 season hoping to build on the promise shown under second-year head coach Chandler McCabe. In McCabe’s first season, the Colonials posted a 15-16 overall record and a 10-10 mark in Horizon League play, earning a fourth place finish, their highest in the league since joining in 2020. They outperformed low preseason expectations (picked to finish last) and made a run to the Horizon League semifinals.

The 2024-25 season for the Mastodons could (and probably should) be labeled as a disappointing season to most Purdue Fort Wayne and Horizon League fans. The Mastodons finished with a respectable record of 19-13 and a decent 5th place regular season finish. The Mastodons’ season ended with a 67-72 loss to Youngstown State in the Horizon League quarterfinals. The Mastodons had high hopes and even higher expectations entering the season.

By John Ostapowicz, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable From recruiting through the NCAA transfer portal to elevating freshmen to starting roles, the Youngstown State women’s basketball program looks to improve from a 2024-25 season filled with firsts. With first-year head coach Melissa Jackson heading into her second season at the team’s helm, she helped elevate the program in a competitive field of conference opponents.

The last time the Cleveland State men’s basketball team took the court they fell to Illinois State in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) championship game. That game in March saw the Vikings shoot 41.7% from the field, 25% from three, and 68.4% from the free throw line. These stats were par for the course under head coach Daniyal Robinson. Recent years involved a lot of defense but not much scoring by CSU.

By Cole Hostetler, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable If you could sum up the last two seasons for the Detroit Mercy Titans women's basketball team in two words, you could use: momentum shift. If you take the first 15 games of the past two years (30 games) and add up the combined wins and losses, you get a record of 22-8, which includes two losses to Michigan State, one to Michigan, and one to Butler.

By Cole Hostetler, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable It’s safe to say that when we look at the history of all sports as we know them, it’s pretty clear that night-and-day turnarounds from one season to the next for a program or franchise are incredibly rare. Bringing a program from its lowest lows to its highest highs isn’t something that happens overnight.