Horizon league tournament preview

This is part 10 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Northern Kentucky 15-3
Wright St 14-4
UIC 12-6
Oakland 10-8
Milwaukee 8-10
IUPUI 8-10
Green Bay 7-11
Cleveland St 6-12
Youngstown St 6-12
Detroit 4-14

Format:
March 2-6.  Neutral site in Detroit.  Bracket is straightforward despite splitting up a round across a couple days.

Matchups:
1) Northern Kentucky vs. 8/9) Cleveland St/Youngstown St
4) Oakland vs. 5) IUPUI
3) UIC vs. 6) Milwaukee
2) Wright St vs. 7/10) Green Bay/Detroit

The stakes:
Much lower than usual for the conference.  They plummeted all the way to CRPI 26.  That is such a massive drop for this league, and their seed will be punished as a result.  Highly likely to wind up on the 15 line, with modest hopes to getting to the 14 line.  NKU and WSU really don't have much going on in their resume.  Everyone else might (well, probably, not might) end up in Dayton if they win this tournament.  It's a bleak outlook for a conference used to playing a weight class or two above this.  And only the top 4 teams are above .500 overall, and I'm not even sure why the CIT or CBI would even want Oakland or UIC at this point.