2024 Horizon League Conference Tournament Preview

Youngstown State Has Slight Edge In Competitive League

With the conference tournament tipping off at campus sites tomorrow before moving to Indianapolis’ Indiana Farmers Coliseum for the semifinals and finals, the 2024 Horizon League Conference odds are out and they’re pretty fascinating.

The No. 6 through No. 11 seeds will play on Tuesday — with the No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 seeds hosting on their home court — while the top five seeds enjoy a bye and will play on Thursday.

The Oakland Golden Grizzlies (15-5 in conference play) narrowly took home the Horizon League regular season title but it is actually the Youngstown State Penguins (14-6) who are the odds-on favorite to win the conference tournament and earn an automatic bid to the Big Dance.

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Considering how jumbled the conference standings were — just four games separated Oakland from the No. 8 seed Purdue Fort Wayne — it should be an exciting tournament once the Horizon adds to the list of college basketball games today.

So, let’s run down the list of contenders with an eye toward the bracket (as currently constituted) to see who is worth betting on. There are three teams that form a clear top tier with everyone else pretty far behind in terms of likeliness to run the table:

Penguins logo Youngstown State (+200)

Interestingly, the way the Horizon League arranges its bracket, Youngstown State — as the No. 2 seed — is on the same side of the draw as the No. 1 seed Oakland.

The Youngstown State Penguins will play the second-lowest remaining seed from the opening round and, if they win that game and the Golden Grizzlies win their first game, the teams will match up in the semifinals (not the finals).

Of course, that hurts Youngstown State’s chances but it does the same for Oakland to be fair. Home-court advantage wouldn’t be a factor here, though, because that game would be played on a neutral site in Indianapolis.

The Penguins lost both of their games against Oakland this season which also definitely worth noting if you’re making NCAAB picks.

Youngstown State’s strength is in its balanced scoring attack which averaged over 81 points per game this season (good for 26th in Division 1).

The Penguins’ top four scorers put between 11.6 and 14.7 points per game. If you can shut down Ziggy Reid, there are guys like D.J. Burns and Brett Thompson right behind him to pick up the slack. Still, it’s tough to take the Penguins over Oakland considering the head-to-head record.

Golden Grizzlies logo Oakland (+250)

A little disrespect by the oddsmakers toward Oakland in the 2024 Horizon League Conference odds despite the Golden Grizzlies having the top seed and sweeping Youngstown State during the regular season.

Greg Kampe’s team did stumble a little bit toward the end of the season, getting blown out at home by Wright State and then being taken down to the wire by 1-30 Detroit Mercy.

Still, this is a very deep team that is led by one of the conference’s best NCAAB players in Trey Townsend. The key for the Oakland Golden Grizzlies is the three-pointer.

They were third in the conference in three-point shooting percentage during conference play and will need to hit plenty of threes if they are going to upend Youngstown State or Wright State in a potential semifinals or finals meeting.

That’s where seniors Blake Lampman and Jack Gohlke come in. They each shoot around nine threes per games at a solid efficiency (Lampman at 38.5% and Gohlke at 36.1%).

Both of them have to step up when it counts if Oakland is going to win its first-ever Horizon League title and its first conference championship since 2011 — when it was still in the Summit League. At +250, Oakland is really good value.

Raiders logo Wright State (+300)

The Raiders round out the top tier of Horizon League contenders, at least according to the 2024 Horizon League Conference odds.

Wright State tied for third in the conference with a 13-7 record thanks to one of the country’s best offenses, which produced 86.1 points per game (fifth-most in Division 1). Trey Calvin, Tanner Holden and Brandon Noel are the Raiders’ top scorers and are each incredibly efficient.

The Wright State Raiders not only led the country in field goal percentage (53.1%) and field goals made (996) but also was 11th in three-point percentage (38.3%).

The flip side is that the Raiders give up a ton of points, 80.6 per game to be exact — that’s the eighth-most in Division 1. Wright State was one of the worst teams in the country in most categories relating to opponent field goal percentage and defensive efficiency.

In conference play, for the most part, their offensive ability was able to outshadow the defensive limitations but, in tournament play, the inability to get a big stop could be crucial.

The Raiders benefit from the unusual NCAAB bracket format, though, because they won’t have to play Youngstown State or Oakland until the finals.

As the No. 4 seed, they’re slated to play Northern Kentucky — who they beat twice during the regular season — in the second round — before a potential matchup with Green Bay in the semifinals. The Phoenix have the Raiders’ number as they swept the season series.

Wright Side is an interesting option because of the elite offense and matchups but the Raiders probably should be higher than +300 to win. The value just doesn’t match the on-court production here if you’re taking NCAAB futures.

Everyone Else:

  • Green Bay (+1000)
  • Purdue Fort Wayne (+1200)
  • Northern Kentucky (+1600)
  • Cleveland State (+2000)
  • Milwaukee (+2000)
  • Robert Morris (+25000)
  • IUPUI (+25000)
  • Detroit Mercy (+2500)

The oddsmakers are really underrating teams like Green Bay, Northern Kentucky and Milwaukee. Those teams were each close enough to the top of the conference to merit some consideration for winning the tournament.

The fact that they are such big underdogs means their value is very high relative to their actual chances of winning.

The Horizon League tournament structure — with plenty of days off prior to the back-to-back semifinals and finals — does make it a bit tougher for a big underdog to have one of those magical runs which catch a higher-seed off guard.

Still, it shouldn’t be ignored how closely packed the conference standings were which shows that, in this conference, anyone really can beat anybody on any given day. There are clear favorites for sure but none of the top Horizon teams are so glaringly better than the second-tier of teams so as to justify such a large gap in the odds.

If you like taking a flyer on one or two “low” seeds in conference tournaments, the Horizon League is the place to do it.

For NCAAB betting news, odds analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.


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