Horizon League Basketball: Ranking of 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

5. Drew McDonald

Northern Kentucky joined the Horizon League in 2015 and were coached by John Brannen for their first four seasons in the league. McDonald, a 6’8 forward from Cold Spring, Kentucky, was also part of the Norse program for those first four seasons and would play a major role in Northern Kentucky’s successful adjustment not just to their new conference but also as a D1 program.

As a bench piece, McDonald averaged 10.5 points a game as a freshman and would carve out a bigger role moving forward. In his sophomore year, he helped take the Norse to their first NCAA Tournament. He’d average 17.0 points and 9.6 rebounds while a junior and had comparable numbers in his senior year as well. More importantly, he got Northern Kentucky back to the Big Dance in 2019, with great performances during another Horizon League Tournament title.

McDonald was First Team All-Horizon for each of those three seasons, becoming one of the league’s best scorers and rebounders. He was named Horizon League Player of the Year and Tournament MVP in that bombastic senior season, one in which he surpassed 2000 career points, one of just a few Horizon League players to achieve such a mark. Regardless of the individual figures, McDonald played a masterful role in getting Northern Kentucky onto the map and adjusted to the Horizon League and winning basketball.