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The Horizon League is a ten school, NCAA Division I college athletic conference, whose members are located in five of the Midwestern United States. The Horizon League is best known for its men's basketball teams, and is one of the top performing NCAA Division I conferences in that sport. Current Horizon League members have made several Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Final Four appearances, including National Championships for Butler in 1924 and 1929[1] and Loyola in the 1963 NCAA Tournament. The Horizon League currently holds the best winning percentage among non-BCS conferences in the men's NCAA basketball Tournament (.472, 7th overall amongst the 31 Division I conferences), and is one of only two non-BCS conferences with Sweet 16 teams in three of the last five years. [2]
Although the league does not sponsor football, Youngstown State plays in the Gateway Football Conference, and Butler and Valparaiso play in the Pioneer League. Men's volleyball is also not sponsored, although Loyola competes in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
FoundationIn May of 1978, DePaul University hosted a meeting with Bradley, Dayton, Detroit, Illinois State, Loyola, Air Force and Xavier in which all agreed in principle that a conference was needed. Further progress was made through a series of early 1979 meetings in San Francisco, Chicago, and St. Louis that included participation by Butler, Creighton, Marquette and Oral Roberts. On June 16, 1979, the Midwestern City Conference (nicknamed the MCC or Midwestern City 6) was formed by charter members Butler, Evansville, Loyola, Oklahoma City, Oral Roberts and Xavier.[3]
Maturity Midwestern Collegiate Conference logoIn 1980, Detroit joined the conference and headquarters were established in Champaign, Illinois. The MCC gained an automatic bid to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1981, followed by the announcement that St. Louis University would be joining the following season. The University of Notre Dame joined the conference for all sports except basketball and football in 1982. Automatic qualification for the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship was attained in 1984, and the conference moved its base to Indianapolis. In 1985, the name was altered slightly to Midwestern Collegiate Conference, the conference brought women's athletics into the fold (which triggered Notre Dame's protest withdrawal), and Oklahoma City dropped out of the NCAA altogether. ESPN began televising the MCC Championship game in 1986, and in 1987 Oral Roberts left the conference while Dayton joined and Notre Dame rejoined. 1989 saw the conference receive its first at-large bid to the men's basketball tournament and automatic qualification to the NCAA Men's Soccer Championship. An automatic bid to the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship was won in 1991, and the conference lost members Marquette and St. Louis. Duquesne and La Salle joined the MCC in 1992, the same year an automatic berth to the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship is won. Duquesne and Dayton left the conference in 1993.
ExpansionIn 1994, six Mid-Continent Conference members, Cleveland State, Northern Illinois, UIC, UW-Green Bay, UW-Milwaukee and Wright State left to join the Horizon League, which remains today the largest non-merger conference expansion in NCAA history.[4][5] So for the time being there were 12 league members. Xavier, Notre Dame, and La Salle all withdrew the following summer of 1995, as did Northern Illinois in 1997. The conference changed its name to the Horizon League on June 4, 2001, in part due to its acronym (MCC) being commonly confused with the Mid-Continent Conference. That year, Youngstown State University came to the Horizon League from the Mid-Con, and on May 17, 2006, Valparaiso University announced it would do the same in 2007.[6] As of 2007, seven of the ten Horizon League members are former members of the Mid-Con (now known as The Summit League).
Horizon League Network Horizon League Network logoIn 2006, the Horizon League Network (HLN) was launched as the centerpiece of a revamped web portal.[7] In partnership with CSTV, the broadband network airs over 200 live events for free on the League's official website. Events include regular season basketball games, tournament matches, archived championships, The Horizon League Report, and other programming from the array of athletics the league sponsors. Its coverage complements events televised on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and members' local sports networks.