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The first of 31 college basketball conference tournaments tips off Monday from the Horizon League, which allows all its schools into the field, as No. 10 seed Cleveland State hosts No. 11 IU Indianapolis in a play-in game. The Vikings are -2 with a total of 173.5 for the 7 p.m. ET tip with the winner visiting No. 1 seed Wright State on Wednesday. I believe that will be CSU.

The Horizon League has been a multi-bid conference nine times in its history, which dates to 1979. But it has been a single-bid league since 2009 – conference power Butler left for the Big East a few years later, which severely weakened the Horizon.

Wright State, which finished 15-18 overall in 2024-25 for its first losing season in 10 years, won its first outright Horizon regular-season title since the 2019-20 campaign. That club didn't make the NCAA Tournament, and the last Raiders squad to do so was the 2021-22 team that won this tournament. 

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Major kudos to WSU as it had no reason to care Saturday at Northern Kentucky but rallied from 20 down to win in the final seconds when it easily could have mailed that one in. I won't lie, that utterly scorched me from a betting perspective. Wright State reached the 20-win mark for the 15th time in its Division I history and for the first time since the 2021-22 season.

CBS Sports bracketology forecasts Wright State to win the conference tournament, to slot in as a No. 15 seed in the Midwest Region of the Dance and to open vs. No. 2 Houston. The SportsLine Projection Model gives WSU a 45.6% shot at winning this event, while DraftKings has the school as a +200 favorite, which equates to a 33.3% chance. The No. 1 seed has won this tournament in back-to-back seasons. In the other four tournaments this decade, no better than a No. 3 seed won.

Horizon League Tournament model win rate

Odds via DraftKings.

  • No. 1 Wright State 45.6% (+200)
  • No. 2 Robert Morris 25.0% (+320)
  • No. 7 Northern Kentucky 7.9% (+1400)
  • No. 6 Purdue Fort Wayne 6.7% (+4500)
  • No. 9 Youngstown State 5.3% (+1600)
  • No. 8 Milwaukee 3.6% (+6500)
  • No. 4 Oakland 3.3% (+425)
  • No. 3 Detroit 1.1% (+1000)
  • No. 5 Green Bay 0.9% (+1000)
  • No. 11 IU Indianapolis 0.3% (+50000)
  • No. 10 Cleveland State 0.3% (+50000)

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The Raiders don't have that one true star and thus likely won't have a Horizon League Player of the Year winner. Forward Michael Imariagbe is the main option, averaging 11.8 points (on 57.7% shooting) and seven rebounds per game. He scored the winning tip-in Saturday, much to my chagrin.

Oakland's Tuburu Naivalurua was the preseason Player of the Year and is having a solid season at 14.3 points and six rebounds per game, but guard Brody Robinson likely has been more valuable to the Golden Grizzlies, leading them in scoring (17 PPG) and assists (6.8 APG).

The 2024-25 winner was Robert Morris' Alvaro Folgueiras; he's now at Iowa. That's how the NIL era works these days. Power schools scoop up the good mid-major players. The Colonials have two Player of the Year candidates this time in guard Ryan Prather Jr. (15.6 PPG) and forward DeSean Goode (15.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG; shooting 63.3% from the field and 59.3% from deep). Goode winning Player of the Year would be my guess.

The defending conference tournament champion also happens to be Robert Morris, which was the fifth straight unique school to earn the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Colonials were a No. 15 seed in the 2025 Dance and threw a bit of a scare into No. 2 Alabama, which pulled away in the second half for a nine-point win. The last Horizon team to win a Dance game is Oakland, which defeated Kentucky in the first round of the 2024 tournament.

The last repeat winner of the Horizon Tournament was Northern Kentucky in 2020, and Robert Morris has a great shot (priced +320) as the No. 2 seed. Note that the Colonials swept both meetings with Wright State, each by at least six. Robert Morris would be my choice as it enters on a seven-game winning streak (7-0 ATS). It hosts No. 9 Youngstown State on Wednesday and won both regular-season matchups. 

IU Indianapolis vs. Cleveland State preview

As for Monday's opener, IU Indianpolis (7-24, 12-17 ATS) and Cleveland State (10-21, 11-17 ATS) combined for a 9-31 league mark. The Vikings lost their final seven, and the Jaguars their last six. Can we turn this into a soccer match and play Draw No Bet? They split in the regular season, each winning pretty comfortably at home. IU Indy's victory snapped a 15-game losing streak in the series. But it has just two road wins this season. 

It should be a fun game to watch offensively with IU Indy leading the Horizon in scoring (83.2 PPG) and Cleveland State ranking fifth (79.7 PPG). They are the bottom two in the league defensively, each allowing at least 85 points per game. The two meetings saw 185 (in Cleveland) and 156 points scored. The Vikings are 7-1 this season when shooting better than 50% from the field, with the loss coming against Wright State.

IU Indy, Youngstown State and Purdue Fort Wayne are the only current Horizon schools yet to win the conference tournament. Youngstown and PFW are the lone Horizon schools yet to reach the NCAA Tournament. IU Indy did so once way back 2003 from the Mid-Continent Conference. Truly didn't know that. 

The top five seeds host first-round games on campus Wednesday, and then the event shifts to Corteva Coliseum in Indianapolis. The title game is next Tuesday. The first conference to set its automatic qualifier will be the Ohio Valley on Saturday.