Conference USA
Winner: North Texas Mean Green
There is one thing about playing slow if you do it correctly. The Mean Green do it correctly. They are one of the slowest-paced teams in the country and they are the best defensive team in the country. They are currently 354th in shots per game with 51. Of those shots, 21 of them are taken from deep and North Texas makes them at a 37% clip. North Texas isn’t flashy on offense, but they are dangerous from three and they do enough on that side of the floor to win games.
It isn’t hard to win games when your defense allows less than 50 shots per game, the fewest number of threes in the country, and allows 55 points per game. The Mean Green are tough to play and prepare for. North Texas forces teams into bad habits and terrible shots that will carry over to the tournament and it led to a win for the Mean Green last year and likely will again.
Sleeper: Rice Owls
Head coach Scott Pera is an offensive genius and when his Rice team is cooking, they can get separation fast. They shoot a ton of threes and the Owls have three guards who can light it up from deep. I personally had lofty expectations for Rice this year because I do believe in Scott Pera as a coach.
However, some early injuries to one of the guards kind of derailed them a bit but they are going to be healthier come conference tournament time, and if Travis Evee and Quincy Olivari get rolling Rice is very hard to beat.
Horizon League
Winner: Cleveland State Vikings
The Vikings have an experienced team that returned 91% of their overall minutes and scoring from last season’s NCAA tournament team. This year Cleveland State is picking up where they left off in the Horizon and is the best team in the league again. They are going to make the tournament again, and this year is a little different from last year because head coach Dennis Gates has an extremely efficient offense to go along with his awesome defense.
The Vikings get to the line a ton, and they are very adept at getting downhill and getting to the rim for easy baskets. They are going to have the Horizon player of the year in D’Moi Hodge and guard Tre Gomillion is going to win back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards. It would be a huge upset if Cleveland State didn’t win the tournament.
Sleeper: UIC Flames
What a month it has been for the Flames. Initially, they were told they would not be allowed to participate in the conference tournament because of their intentions to join the MVC in July. After consideration, the Horizon league powers that be decided it was wrong to punish the athletes and are allowing Illinois Chicago to participate in the conference tournament for one last chance to make the NCAA tournament as a member of the Horizon League.
What more motivation do the Flames need? The administration at Illinois Chicago is unreasonably mad at the rule that they helped implement regarding conference tournament bans in the Horizon League, and they are going to look at anything to stick it to their former conference. The Flames are going to be motivated, have an elite scorer in Damaria Franklin, shoot a ton of threes and play extremely fast. They are a team who is a stereotypical team to get hot and make a run.