Mid-Major Madness’ Horizon League Twitter Space Preview: Greg Kampe/Matt Crenshaw/Jerrod Calhoun/Jon Coffman

On Thursday evening, we continued conference previews with the Horizon League. Every week on Twitter, we will do two conferences from the Mid-Major Madness account (@mid_madness), speaking with media members and coaches from throughout the selected league.

For the full Twitter Space, hit the link below.

To open up the conversation, HoriZone Roundtable’s Bob McDonald and us recapped what happened in the Horizon League last season. Although Wright State struggled in the non-conference, they came out victorious in the conference tournament and won a game in Dayton. They would fall to Arizona in the Round of 64 but put up a good fight. The story of the season in the league was Patrick Baldwin Jr. Although he was a first-round pick to the Golden State Warriors, he only played 11 games and his father was fired at the end of the season.

Oakland head coach Greg Kampe (11:30) then came on to talk about what has made him so successful being the second longest-tenured coach in the country and the honor of being named the sexiest coach in college basketball by our writers last season.

“I got more scars than anyone else on that list I know that,” said Kampe on the honor. “I got a lot of mileage out of that, I’ll admit. That helped me a lot.”

Following him, IUPUI head coach Matt Crenshaw (29:15) came on to talk about his program. Last season the Jaguars played with only six men at a time, but this year bring in 19 players.

“It’s hard for those young men and I always tip my hat off and commend them,” said Crenshaw. “As we got into February, those guys kinda got that confidence and playing for one another. Just the chemistry all worked its way in. Wish it would’ve happened a little earlier, but they fought and that’s all you can ask for as a coach.”

Lastly, Youngstown State head coach Jerrod Calhoun (58:00) came on to talk about his Penguins. Calhoun helped recruit one of the best transfer classes in the country this season.

“Everything kinda fell in place with being able to retain Dwayne Cohill, obviously, that was a really really big recruit. Getting Garrett Covington back out of the portal was really big as well,” said Calhoun. “We wanted to really get a class that was older, added some depth to what we have coming back. We got eight returning guys coming back. So we’re able to accomplish a little of everything with this recruiting class.”

Bob and Nick then continued to talk about the teams in the league, previewing every one. To hear about your team, advance the recording to each time stamp.

1:23:50 Cleveland State

1:25:55 Detroit Mercy

1:28:55 Green Bay

1:30:45 Milwaukee

1:33:20 Northern Kentucky

1:19:00 Purdue Fort Wayne

1:36:30 Robert Morris

1:38:10 Wright State

1:42:30 POTY & Title Predictions

Along with the Twitter Space, we also talked to Purdue Fort Wayne head coach Jon Coffman about his program heading into the season. The Mastodons return nearly everyone from a regular season championship team and are coming off a strong trip to Barcelona and Portugal.

“We got our guys comfortable being uncomfortable and we got to play some basketball too,” said Coffman. “It was really cool in Portugal we got to play against (Neemias) Queta from Utah State who plays for the Sacramento Kings. I thought that was awesome for our guys, they get to go nose-to-nose with an NBA player.”

To listen to our full chat with Coffman, click the link: Jon Coffman Interview

Along with the Horizon League, Mid-Major Madness also previewed the Conference USA last week. Stay tuned for a preview article on both the American Athletic and SWAC this upcoming week.