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The Horizon League Board of Directors announced Wednesday all University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) student-athletes would be barred from its winter conference championships because of the school's violation of its "timely notice requirement for departing members."
UIC confirmed in January it was leaving the Horizon League for the Missouri Valley Conference on July 1. The Horizon League board said in a statement such a decision requires at least one year of notice:
"Horizon League Bylaws provide a choice to departing members: either provide a reasonable one-year notice of a decision to join another league or lose the privilege of having its teams participate in League championships and potentially carry the Horizon League banner into NCAA tournament competition. The League's eligibility Bylaws have been in place for years and were approved by its members, including UIC, fully aware of this choice."
UIC Athletics released a statement in response to the league's ruling:
The Horizon League is following in the footsteps of other conferences that imposed similar measures following a carousel of program movement jump-started by Oklahoma and Texas announcing in July they'd be leaving the Big 12 for the SEC no later than July 1, 2025.
That started a whirlwind of movement that has left several conferences scrambling to ensure they'll remain viable in the coming years.
In November, the Colonial Athletic Association banned James Madison athletes from its championships following the school's decision to leave for the Sun Belt Conference.
The America East Conference followed suit last week when it barred Stony Brook from postseason play because of its impending departure for the CAA.
In December, NCAA president Mark Emmert said trust issues began to develop between the conferences because of the work behind the scenes to recruit programs to switch allegiances, per ESPN's Adam Rittenberg.
"The schools regulate each other. Sports is just another example of that. That is utterly dependent upon collegiality, cooperation and trust," he said. "If you can't self-regulate an environment on collegiality and trust and good communications, you've got a big problem."
Of course, the biggest issue with the conferences' recent decisions, as ESPN's Jay Bilas pointed out after the Stony Brook announcement, is that the athletes are punished for no fault of their own:
The rulings also cover all sports, so while most of the focus surrounding the conference changes has been focused on moneymakers like football and basketball, every athlete is impacted.
Meanwhile, UIC noted in its full statement the Horizon League denied it an opportunity to argue its case in front of the board before rending a decision.
Saturday's men's basketball game between No. 2 Duke and Cleveland State has been canceled.
Per an announcement from the Blue Devils, Cleveland State has announced a COVID-related pause in the basketball program.
The announcement also noted Duke is "actively pursuing" a potential replacement opponent for Saturday.
Cleveland State athletic director Scott Garrett issued a statement about the status of the basketball team:
Throughout the pandemic we have prioritized the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff while training and competing. Coach Gates and the team have been extremely diligent in adhering to our protocols as well as deploying other proactive risk mitigation strategies. After consultation with our training staff and the Cleveland Clinic Sports Health Center, we are pausing team activity and will reassess in 10 days. While we are disappointed, it is clear that this is the responsible course of action.
In addition to Saturday's game against Duke, the Vikings have also canceled their Dec. 21 game against Kent State.
Cleveland State isn't scheduled to play again until Dec. 30 against IUPUI at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in the Horizon League opener for both teams.
Duke is still scheduled to host Appalachian State on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET. If the Blue Devils are unable to find a new opponent for Saturday, they won't play again until Virginia Tech comes to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Dec. 22 in the ACC opener for both programs.
Patrick Baldwin Jr., who is ranked No. 4 in 247Sports' composite class of 2021 boys basketball rankings, announced on SportsCenter on Wednesday that he will attend Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The Sussex, Wisconsin, native fielded 23 offers, and he cut that list to three finalists (Georgetown, Duke and UW-Milwaukee). He is the son of Pat Baldwin, who coaches the UW-Milwaukee Panthers men's basketball team.
Baldwin is just one of 26 5-star class of 2021 prospects, per 247Sports' composite rankings.
Brian Snow of 247Sports raved about the 6'9" Baldwin's pro potential, comparing him to Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson and writing the following on Dec. 14, 2018, during his sophomore year.
"Has great length and an excellent frame to add weight. At 6'8" [now listed as 6'9"], can play either forward spot and he has the ability to be a weapon from beyond the arc. There aren't many prospects who have the combination of skill, basketball IQ, size, and athleticism. Has gotten significantly better off the dribble, and it is easy to see why he is one of the premier prospects in the class of 2021.
"From an NBA perspective he has not only significant 3 and D potential as a forward, but his athleticism is getting better–which could mean future star status if everything continues to come together. Add in that he is a son of a coach who has been around the game his whole life, and Baldwin checks nearly every box you could want out of a prospect. Looks like he will develop into an NBA lottery pick."
Baldwin posted 19.0 points and 8.2 rebounds per game en route to guiding his team to a 21-5 mark in 2018-19. Those numbers improved to 24.3 points and 10.8 rebounds for a 22-3 team in 2019-20.
Hamilton reached the quarterfinals of the 2019-20 Wisconsin Division 1 boys basketball state playoffs, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the tournament's cancellation.
A season-ending ankle injury suffered in Dec. 2020 shut down his senior campaign prematurely.
Baldwin will join his father and hope to lead the Panthers to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2014.
The University of Illinois at Chicago borrowed Joseph J. Gentile Arena from Loyola University to host its quarterfinal matchup with Youngstown State in the 2020 Horizon League Men's basketball tournament. It needed to find an alternative court because its home floor, Credit Union 1 Arena, was booked for a robotics competition.
UIC scored a 67-61 victory over the Penguins to advance even without the benefit of its traditional home-court advantage. The Flames will face top-seeded Wright State in the semifinals Monday.
Michael Diggins led the way with 17 points for the Flames, who built a nine-point halftime lead and held off a second-half rally from Youngstown State.
Marcus Ottey (10 points) was the only other UIC player to reach double figures in scoring. Tarkus Ferguson added six points, 13 rebounds and four assists.
The Flames also benefited from a 49-36 rebounding advantage.
Garrett Covington paced the Penguins with 17 points. Youngstown State shot 36.9 percent from the field, including 25 percent from beyond the arc, and made just seven of its 12 free throws (58.3 percent).
UIC is now two victories away from a berth in the 2020 NCAA tournament.
The remainder of the Horizon League tourney will take place at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis.
Brad Calipari will finish his college basketball career at Detroit Mercy starting next season.
He announced his decision Monday on Twitter:
"This hasn't been an easy decision for me, but I've decided to finish the rest of my basketball career elsewhere," he said in the video, via WYMT. "It's always been a dream of mine to make a major impact on the court on the college level and I believe the best opportunity to do that is at the University of Detroit Mercy."
Calipari had played for his father, John Calipari, at the University of Kentucky for two seasons before redshirting in 2018-19. He was used sparingly off the bench, scoring a total of 11 points in 27 games from 2016-18.
Under normal circumstances, it might lead to some awkward holiday dinners by having a son leave the team his father is coaching. The elder Calipari, though, said in March there was a reason behind Brad redshirting last season.
"He redshirted because he's going to have two years to play," John said on The Jim Rome Show (h/t Larry Brown of Larry Brown Sports). "If he chooses to, he can go to another school, a smaller school where he'll play more."
Matt Zenitz of AL.com reported on May 30 that Brad put himself in the NCAA transfer portal. The 22-year-old does have the luxury of being a graduate transfer, which will allow him to play for the Titans right away without having to sit out for a year.
It's difficult to know what kind of player Detroit Mercy is getting because Calipari has barely seen the court over the past three years. That's a testament to John's recruiting ability and the number of elite backcourt players the Wildcats have every season.
Calipari was an effective scorer in high school, finishing with more than 1,000 career points in four years and averaging 15.3 points per game as a senior in 2015-16.
The Titans will be able to provide Calipari more playing time than he was able to get at Kentucky. It's a low-risk gamble for former Indiana coach Mike Davis to take, hoping he can find another shooter to boost his offensive production for the 2019-20 campaign.
The most unguardable freshman in college basketball doesn't play for Duke, Kentucky, Kansas or any other blue-blood program—although he was born in Bloomington, Indiana, while his father was the head coach of the Hoosiers. He is a completely different player than Zion Williamson, and he isn't as big as RJ Barrett, but he's scoring even more than either of the Blue Devils' surefire 2019 lottery picks.
That first-year phenom is Antoine Davis, and he is averaging 27.2 points per game at Detroit Mercy.
Davis has scored at least 17 points in each of his 18 games played. He had 32 in the season opener against Western Michigan—his first of eight times (and counting) putting up at least 30. Two weeks later, he shot 10-of-14 from three-point range en route to 42 points against Loyola-Maryland. Earlier this month, he again made 10 triples in a single contest, scoring a career-high 48 in a statement win over Wright State.
But he (somehow?) isn't a projected first-round draft pick, and he plays for a sub-.500 team, so he almost never shows up on SportsCenter highlight reels or in the various debates about the best players in the country.
He's used to dominating in obscurity, though.
According to a November story by The Athletic's Brendan Quinn, the homeschooled hooper had been working out with John Lucas Jr. since he was 14 years old, taking 1,000 to 5,000 shots every day for years. And according to a December story by Sports Illustrated's Jeremy Fuchs, he routinely held his own against the likes of Justise Winslow and Justin Jackson and frequently practiced against D-I players at Texas Southern.
He averaged 23 points per game as a junior in the Homeschool Christian Youth Association in Houston. He also played on the Nike EYBL Tour. But the 6'1" scoring guard who maybe weighed 150 pounds soaking wet didn't get much attention from the recruiting services—not much unlike a certain all-time great from Davidson who Davis is about to surpass in the NCAA record books.
Both Rivals and 247Sports rated him as a 3-star guy. The latter service placed him at No. 312* nationally in its composite ranking. According to 247Sports, not one of the 75 major-conference programs extended Davis an offer.
*That's a very low ranking as far as potential impact freshmen are concerned, but it has been a lucky number in recent years. Texas Tech star Jarrett Culver was No. 312 in the 2017 rankings, and Jordan Bohannon has been Iowa's starting point guard in all three years since getting slotted there in 2016.
Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson knew Davis had the potential to be something special, though.
When Davis signed with the Cougars in November 2017, Sampson said: "I am really excited about Antoine Davis. He comes from a basketball background. He is the best shooter I have seen in this state since I have been at Houston, but he is more than just a shooter. Antoine is a self-made player. He is a good ball-handler and a good passer."
In May 2018, however, Davis decided he wanted to stay with his dad and play for Texas Southern. And in early June when Mike Davis left TSU to take the job at Detroit, Antoine followed him to Michigan to help clean up a mess.
After back-to-back eight-win seasons under Bacari Alexander, the Titans were a disaster. They ranked outside the top 300 on KenPom.com in both seasons before the Davis family came to the rescue. Plus, they lost seven of the eight guys who averaged at least 4.0 points per game in 2017-18, so major changes needed to be made.
Rather than find seven new guys to average at least four points per game, Antoine Davis has stepped in to average nearly seven times that amount by himself.
Detroit still only has eight wins, but that's a product of Mike Davis' aggressive approach to nonconference scheduling. Texas Southern always had a brutal November and December on his watch, and he found a new school willing to do the same. Detroit played road games against Butler, Xavier, Temple, Dayton and Toledo and didn't come close to winning any of them.
The strategy forced the Titans to grow up in a hurry, though, and they are 5-2 in Horizon League play and tied for second place in the conference standings. Northern Kentucky is the clear front-runner to win the conference, but the favorite has almost never won the Horizon League tournament in recent years. So there's a good chance that Mike Davis will lead his fourth different school to the NCAA tournament and that Antoine will be the leader of a dangerous No. 15 or No. 16 seed.
Even if the Titans don't get a chance to bust brackets, their scoring machine is well on his way toward shattering a freshman record set by none other than Stephen Curry.
Curry made 122 three-pointers in his first season at Davidson. Trae Young (118) almost surpassed that mark last season, but Chef Steph is still No. 1 in the record books—for a few more weeks, anyway.
Davis is averaging a Marshall Henderson-like 11.7 three-point attempts per game, but he is converting on 41 percent of those shots. (Prior to a 1-of-8 dud against Oakland this past weekend, those numbers were 11.9 and 42.1, respectively.) He has already made 91 threes this season, and with a minimum of 12 games yet to be played, he is on pace for 148 triples.
He should pass Curry on Valentine's Day—more than a month before the 2019 NCAA tournament begins.
If Detroit does win the Horizon League tournament and plays one game in the NCAA tournament, that would be 15 more games, changing his projection to 162.8 made three-pointers. Let's call that 163, which would be one more than Curry's all-time record of 162 made three-pointers in a single season.
How is the national media not talking about this guy on a nightly basis?
Dating back to the 2002-03 season, only three freshmen have averaged at least 25 points per game. (They all played in the Big 12, oddly enough.) Trae Young put up 27.4 points per game last year at Oklahoma. Michael Beasley averaged 26.2 for Kansas State in 2007-08. And Kevin Durant went for 25.8 per night with Texas in 2006-07.
Each of those three former collegiate sensations parlayed their point-heavy freshman seasons into a top-five pick in the subsequent NBA draft, but Davis is curiously absent from the internet's seemingly infinite sea of mock drafts and big boards.
It's time to start paying attention, guys.
Even if you don't have an ESPN+ subscription, you'll be able to catch Davis on Watch ESPN on three out of four Saturdays in February: vs. Youngstown State on the 2nd, at Green Bay on the 16th and at Oakland on the 23rd.
If you can only pick one, go with the Green Bay game. He had 29 in the first win over the Phoenix, and they play at one of the fastest tempos in the nation, which should mean even more shots for Davis than his usual allotment of 22.6 per game. But we would strongly advise watching all three with a big bowl of popcorn at the ready, because this young man is as entertaining as they come.
Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.
