ESPN Contests, Intrastate Showdown Among Key Weekend Games

Horizon League Men’s Basketball Schedule
Friday, Feb. 3:
Cleveland State at Loyola, 9 p.m. ET – ESPNU

Saturday, Feb. 4:
Detroit at Butler, 12 p.m. ET – ESPN2
Milwaukee at Green Bay, 2 p.m. ET – Horizon League Network Game of the Week | ESPN3
Wright State at Valparaiso, 8:05 p.m. ET – Horizon League Network

Sunday, Feb. 5:
Youngstown State at Loyola, 2 p.m. ET – Horizon League Network
Cleveland State at UIC, 2 p.m. ET – Horizon League Network

With byes, home games and future seeds on the line for the Horizon League Tournament, every game matters. And with six teams jumbled within two games of each other, the League standings have never been closer.

Friday night sees just one Horizon League game, with League-leader Cleveland State (18-4, 8-2 Horizon) getting a chance to showcase itself before a national audience on ESPNU when they take on Loyola (5-16, 0-11 Horizon). For its part, the Ramblers have a chance to not only showcase the renovated Gentile Arena, but to collect their first League win.

Cleveland State hits the road in the same position it was in last year – on top of the League standings entering February. Last year, the Vikings slipped to 4-4 down the stretch, visibly worn down by a thin bench. This season, it has been the CSU bench that has lifted the team of late.

Anton Grady posted his second career double-double in the Vikings’ last game, a 67-47 win at Youngstown State. The Cleveland native is averaging 8.0 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, but has upped those numbers in the Horizon League. In the 10 league contests, Grady is posting 9.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, scoring in double figures seven times.

The Vikings’ defense already ranks among the toughest in the nation, helping CSU to nine true road wins, second-most in the nation. On Friday, the CSU defense matches up with an opponent that has struggled offensively throughout the year. Five times this year the Vikings have held a team under 50 points this year, including the teams’ first meeting on Jan. 7. Overall, CSU is first in the league and 19th in the nation in scoring defense (59.0).

As they have throughout the year, the Ramblers will turn to the duo of Walt Gibler and Ben Averkamp. Gibler enters Saturday just 16 points shy of becoming the 38th player in Loyola history to total 1,000 for his career. The senior needs just 17 more rebounds to join the 500-rebound club. Should Gibler reach both the 1,000-point and 500-rebound marks, he would become just the 18th player in school history, and the first since Blake Schilb, to accomplish the feat.

Meanwhile, Averkamp has scored 20 or more points six times in the last 13 games after not totaling more than 19 points in a game in the first 69 outings of his collegiate career. The junior forward's six games with 20 or more points rank tied for second in the Horizon League behind only Wright State’s Julius Mays (8).

After battling injuries, Jordan Hicks and Joe Crisman have provided stability for Loyola’s backcourt, combining for 22.8 ppg, while knocking down 52 percent (34 for 65) of their shots from the field, including 58 percent (15 for 26) from three-point range. In the previous five contests, the duo mustered a collective 8.2 ppg on just 25 percent (13 for 53) accuracy from the field and 12 percent (3 for 26) from long distance.

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Saturday will see a sellout at Hinkle Fieldhouse before a national audience on ESPN2, when Detroit (12-12, 6-6 Horizon) meets Butler (13-11, 7-5 Horizon). The Titans are coming off a disappointing loss at Valparaiso on Friday, while the Bulldogs’ offense got untracked in a victory over Wright State.

While Butler’s offensive blitz on Thursday helped it hold off the Raiders, it was Detroit that blitzed the Bulldogs in a 76-65 victory on Jan. 8. The win presents an opportunity for the Titans to pull not only into a tie with Butler in the League standings, but to collect a potentially huge tie-breaker with a series sweep.

A balanced attack put five Titans into double figures in the January win, and Detroit featured the same approach in Thursday’s narrow loss to Valparaiso. Chase Simon, Ray McCallum and Eli Holman all had 14 points in the defeat, while Doug Anderson added 12 points and earned the top play on SportsCenter with a massive first-half dunk.

Having turned its season around by going 5-2 in its last seven games,a key to Detroit’s run of success has been a commitment to defense. The Titans have put the clamps down defensively during this stretch, allowing just 61.8 points in their five wins. Detroit held Wright State to 53 and squandered only a season-low 52 to Loyola during that run before allowing 78 on Thursday.

Butler found its offensive groove in the first half on Thursday, with Chrishawn Hopkins sparking the Bulldogs in his return to the starting lineup. Hopkins had a team-best 13 points as Butler shot 62 percent in the first half to grab the lead and never look back.

The Bulldogs’ staple offensively has been its balance, with five players averaging seven or more points in League play.

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The Horizon League Network Game of the Week highlights an intrastate rivalry as Green Bay (9-12, 5-6 Horizon) hosts Milwaukee (14-10, 7-5 Horizon). The Phoenix hold a 9-1 record at the Resch Center, and presently sit at the tail end of a six-team pileup that separates the squads by two games.

Milwaukee (14-10, 7-5 Horizon) is one of the teams at the top, tied with Butler and Youngstown state for third, but just two games ahead of Green Bay in eighth. Injuries have sapped the Panthers’ depth, as Milwaukee has gone 4-6 in its past 10 games, including two consecutive losses at home, where the team had been 10-1 entering last week.

Saturday’s game will feature the present and future of Horizon League point guards, as the old guard in Kaylon Williams matches up with the newcomer in Green Bay’s Keifer Sykes. Williams is among the nation’s top players in finding his teammates, assisting on 42.85 percent of Milwaukee’s baskets, the sixth-best rate in the nation.

Sykes, when not getting stitched and restitched during games, is averaging 11.5 ppg and 3.5 apg in League play, putting him among the League leaders in both categories.

Just a month ago, it was Williams hitting a game-winning three-pointer over Sykes as Milwaukee claimed a wild 64-63 win over the Phoenix at U.S. Cellular Arena. Sykes had his coming-out party in that game with 20 points as Green Bay led as many as 12 but could not stop Williams at the end.

That loss on Jan. 7 was in the midst of a stretch of six defeats in seven games for the Phoenix, but head coach Brian Wardle's team recovered Valparaiso and Butler last week. The two double-digit wins improved Green Bay's record at the Resch Center to 9-1 this season and 19-5 under Wardle.

It has been a balanced Green Bay team of late, with four players averaging in double figures in January. Two players scored career highs last week, with Kam Cerroni pouring in five threes and 23 points in the 15-point win over Valpo and Brennan Cougill notching 21 in Saturday’s victory over the Bulldogs.

While Sykes was memorably getting stitched up in the Butler win, Alec Brown was wrapping up another solid week. The 7-foot-1 Brown averaged 17.5 points and eight rebounds in the wins while tying the Green Bay record held by Terry Evans for career blocked shots (132).

On the day Green Bay honors Brown with his own bobblehead, the sophomore needs just one block to break the Phoenix record for career blocks and three to break his own single-season mark of 67, set just last year. The last time Green Bay hosted the HLN Game of the Week, Brown set a new League single-game record with 11 blocks.

Milwaukee will seek a return to tenacious defense and offensive balance, something that has eluded it at times over the last three weeks. In the last five games, the Panthers are allowing opponents to shoot 43 percent from the floor overall and nearly 35 percent from three-point range, both well above the season averages of 40.5 and 25.9 percent, respectively.

A relative MASH unit, even Milwaukee’s “healthy” players are working through injuries. Both Ryan Allen and  Tony Meier are playing through ankle injuries, while Kyle Kelm is battling a nagging foot injury. In all, Milwaukee has yet to play a game with its expected starting lineup, and Saturday will be no exception.

Still, the burden will fall to Williams, Meier and James Haarsma to carry the load; Williams’s 35.2 minutes per game average leads the League, while Haarsma is among the top rebounders in the conference, grabbing 2.8 offensive boards per game. The mark has helped the junior average 11.9 ppg in League play.

Haarsma, Meier and Kelm will be among the bigs trying to slow Cougill and Brown, who have given Green Bay a foundation inside for the foreseeable future.

Tuesday’s loss to Youngstown State marked just the fifth time this year that Milwwaukee allowed an opponent to eclipse the 70-point mark.

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Saturday’s nightcap will see Valparaiso (16-8, 9-3 Horizon) look to become the first team in the Horizon League to reach 10 conference wins when Wright State (11-13, 6-6 Horizon) visits the ARC. The Crusaders will also be out to avenge its worst loss of the conference season, a 73-55 loss to Wright State on Jan. 8.

In that game, the Raiders outscored the Crusaders by 20 points in the second half as Armond Battle finished with a career-high 23 points in the game. Battle enters Saturday after an 18-point outburst on Thursday.

Julius Mays added 21 for the Raiders in that win, scoring two-thirds of his points in the game’s final 20 minutes, while Battle added 11. The duo was a combined 13-for-14 at the free-throw line as WSU shot 60.9 percent from the floor in the win.

Saturday’s matchup features three of the top four scorers in the Horizon League, as Mays enters the night leading the League with a 16.6 ppg average in 11 conference games. Kevin Van Wijk and Ryan Broekhoff are tied for third with 15.2 ppg.

Broekhoff put the Crusaders on his back in Thursday’s 78-73 win over Detroit, tying a Valpo record by going 6-fo-6 from three-point range en route to 26 points. In League play, Broekhoff is in the top 10 in seven of the 13 statistical categories on the conference report.

Meanwhile, Van Wijk continues to be among the most successful post players in the country, knocking down 61.5 percent of his attempts from the field. The junior, who has battled back trouble throughout his career, is 120-for-195 in the season.

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Sunday will see UIC (7-15, 3-9 Horizon) host Cleveland State, with the Flames looking for continued production from Gary Talton and Daniel Barnes. The duo each had 19 points in a 72-68 win over Youngstown State on Thursday, while Darrin Williams and Hayden Humes controlled the interior, each notching double-doubles.

The victory marked two important milestones for head coach Howard Moore in just his second year: the three wins bested last year’s mark in League play, while UIC’s seven victories match their total from last season.

Youngstown State (12-10, 7-5 Horizon) is tied with Milwaukee and Butler for third, but the Penguins have two days to sit in Chicago and stew over their loss to UIC before meeting Loyola on Sunday. For YSU, the game marked one that got away, as the Penguins led by six at the half and eight early in the second before the Flames used a 12-0 to grab control of the contest.

Still the Penguins will head to Loyola confident of what they do best: shoot the three-pointer. YSU hit 11 in the loss, with three late triples nearly helping the Penguins climb out of a late eight-point hole. The Penguins will hope Kendrick Perry stays hot, as the sophomore is averaging 24.5 ppg in the first two games of the three-game trip, including a 30-point effort in Tuesday’s win at Milwaukee.