Post by freewind on Dec 21, 2020 8:13:24 GMT -6
After the first week of league play, the Horizon League settles in as a conference rank of NET 21, RPI 17. Commonly compared to rivals Summit Net 19 RPI 20, MAC 12 Net RPI 12, and Missouri Valley 11 Net RPI 13.
It saddens me to see the Horizon so far back as we played a lot of games against the MAC and went about 50/50 with them. I think the results are kind of mixed between poor performance, poor scheduling, and unlucky situation dealing with covid.
That being said conference play was interesting this weekend. Seeing teams having to play each other back to back made me wonder psychologically how teams would do having to play each other twice in a short period of time.
With only YSU/NKU splitting the weekend, it looks like it might be harder for teams to recover quick enough to figure their opponents out. I also thought it might be mentally hard to come out and have to beat the same team again after doing it the day before, which didn't seem like the case.
Milwaukee surprised me the most, beating rival Green Bay in both games. Coach Ryan has some good pieces, and he's got all season long to get them working right. Pat Baldwin can't be happy with just beating his rivals this weekend, he's got to focus and keep this momentum going all through the year.
UIC fans need to be more happy than they are. They have a new coach and he's winning. This does not surprise me, last year I thought your team was still decent and it felt ho-hum going into playoffs. Do we all still think Oakland is the best team who has yet to win a game?
CSU welcomed PFW to the Horizon league by beating them on their home court 2 games in a row. The wins had to feel nice after losing all 3 non conf games. If Gates can keep their mental focus i think this is a strong team, but that might be tricky against tougher opponents.
WSU answered a lot of questions this weekend, the big one was depth. With a mostly 6 man roster and losing Finke early had me worried. Basile was able to play long minutes and Alex & Manns was able to plug in the rest. Detroit feels like it's one NBA Davis away from being a really good team.
RMU must wondered how they stack up against Wright State as they quickly put BGU/Marshall on their schedule for this weekend. They lost to both teams, so they have some work to do.
Power Rankings after first week of conference Action:
1. WSU
2. UIC
3. NKU
4. YSU
5. CSU
6. UWM
7. DET
8. OAK
9. GB
10. IUPUI
11 PFW
12 RMU
