Wright State at Northern Kentucky, 5:00 PM Eastern, espn3
Cleveland State at Purdue-Fort Wayne, 5:00 PM Eastern, espn3
The Horizon League regular season championship will be decided today in the pair of games featured as our Under the Radar Games of the Day — Wright State at Northern Kentucky and Cleveland State at Fort Wayne. After both Wright State and Cleveland State suffered upset losses last night, the two teams remain tied for first place in the Horizon heading into todays regular season finales.
Wright State (17-5 overall, 15-4 in conference) is led by their star player, Loudon Love. Love is averaging a double-double with 16.7 points and 10.2 rebounds per game. However, despite being pretty much right on those numbers last night (16 and 10) and having four other teammates join him in double-digits, Wright State still lost 81-75 at NKU. Northern Kentucky (13-9 overall, 11-6 in conference) had four players of their own in double figures led by 23 from Marques Warrick. Wright State has the top-rated defense in the Horizon League, but has now given up over 80 points in three straight games and needs to get their defense back in line heading into this evening’s huge contest and the Horizon League tournament.
Cleveland State (15-7 overall 15-4 in conference) is led by Torrey Patton who is averaging 13.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. Despite scoring a team0high 17 last night, the Vikings were unable to contain Purdue-Fort Wayne’s Jalon Pipkins (19 points) and Bobby Planutis (16 points). The Mastodons (7-13 overall, 6-13 in conference) were able to score the 75-68 upset win and spoil Cleveland State’s chance at takin a one game lead inn the league standings heading into today’s action.
These two games will decide the regular season title and which team will be the #1 seed in the Horizon League tournament, which starts with first round games this coming Thursday (though the top four seeds will not play until Tuesday, March 2). If either team wins while the other loses, the winner will take the crown. Should both teams win (or lose), the top seed will be determined by the league’s tiebreaker system, which may actually need the result of today’s Robert Morris at Detroit Mercy game to help figure things out. In any event, we will have a decision today and our first conference tournament bracket posted by no later than tomorrow morning!