Horizon League Basketball: Wright State, NKU conference tournament favorites

Horizon League Basketball will have one of the more exciting tournaments of championship week. Will there be more chaos this season?

Conference tournament season is here, and the Horizon League tournament is shaping up to be one of the better conference tournaments of the season. The Horizon League tournament has been pure chaos for the last few seasons. Last year the top seed Northern Kentucky was defeated in the first round by a bad Cleveland State team. That led to Wright State winning the conference tournament as the two seed and making their way to the NCAA tournament.

This season the league has a two-way tie for first at the top. The two teams at the top are the teams who were expected to compete for the top spot at the start of the season. Wright State Raiders and Northern Kentucky Norse are the class of this league and the rest of the league fall in line as they may be. The Raiders and Norse have developed a rivalry within this league, this season the Norse have yet to defeat Wright State but they are hoping to get another chance, and beat them when it counts.

The league has had several disappointing teams. Some pundits felt this league would be a little more competitive at the top, but that has not panned out. The Illinois-Chicago Flames and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies are two of the teams who had moderate expectations and have not lived up to those expectations. The Golden Grizzlies was expected as they lost most of their scoring. The Flames are a team who are hard to figure out, they have a talented roster but can never seem to put a whole season together.

As mentioned, the tournament has experienced numerous upsets over the last several years so anyone winning this league would not be that out of the ordinary. However, with the higher quality talent of Northern Kentucky and Wright State those two should be considered the favorites.