Lady Topper Hoops Notebook: Lady Tops Tread Water in Conference USA, Split Road Trip

Western Kentucky Women’s Basketball dug itself a hole in Conference USA, losing its first two on the road against teams (North Texas and…

Western Kentucky Women’s Basketball dug itself a hole in Conference USA, losing its first two on the road against teams (North Texas and Rice) they held significant leads against at different points in each game.

Losing to Rice was one thing: A loss to a preseason favorite. Losing to North Texas? That is an absolute misstep. That being said, WKU has won three of four since and is still in the running for one of the coveted top four seeds in the C-USA Tournament. Western is also still in the running for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament as well with some quality wins and an RPI that actually improved with a loss to Old Dominion and took a jump (+6 to 38th) after beating then #48 Charlotte Saturday (spoiler alert).

Heading into this week, WKU carried the momentum from two victories against other favorites, UAB and MTSU. WKU was standing at 2–2 and completely capable of recovering from those two early hiccups.

Heading into this road trip against two very good opponents, an honest, minimum and fair goal should probably have been to split these two games.

Ultimately, that’s what happened. Mission accomplished, but now WKU sits a full three games out of first and in a cluster in the middle of the pack.

Thursday at Old Dominion, 65–76 L

Greg Collins has been trying to mess with his rotation since Alexis Brewer came back from an injury that had kept her out of every single game this season until late December when she laced it up for the first time. Alexis Brewer is without a doubt an important piece to this team, brings an asset (shooting) that the Tops desperately need, and has experience (Power Five transfer from West Virginia) at a higher level.

However, inserting her into the lineup has had Collins attempt starting Fatou Pouye, Brewer, and other combinations besides the trusty lineup of Creech, Porter, Abdelgawad, Givens, and Elgedawy. In all fairness, I see the dilemma because of the aforementioned attributes of a player that started last season when healthy (Brewer). However, other players have made significant strides and now also have completely legitimate reasons they should start.

All of this is to say that for some reason against Old Dominion, Meral Abdelgawad had one personal foul but only played six minutes of the game despite being a starter. Brewer, Sandra Skinner, and Pouye all had more minutes than her.

WKU took an early lead of just three points 1:36 into the game, and WKU would never hold a lead higher than that the rest of the way. Old Dominion led by as many as 18 (9:47 remaining in the third quarter) during the contest. WKU tried to scrape back into it in the late third and fourth quarters, cutting it down to a manageable five-point margin heading into the fourth.

Old Dominion was in utter control from start to finish. Sure, WKU played well to pull within a few points, but it never really felt like ODU was losing their cool or melting down. As they say, “Every team makes their run.” Western made its run, and ODU sustained through it and easily won by a final margin of 11.

A major development of late for the Lady Tops and their struggles has been Dee Givens. Normally a 40%+ three-point shooter, Dee has fallen under 30% for the year, going 7–of-her-last-42 from behind the arc in recent weeks. That will cripple a great player’s ability to make her best impact, without question. Dee scored 19 against Old Dominion, but was only 2-of-9 from deep and needed 18 shots to make 19 points. That’s still bearably efficient, mainly because of drawing so many fouls, but it is not the Dee Givens Collins is used to sending out there night in and night out.

If Dee could catch fire, or simply be decent from deep, that would be tremendous for the Lady Tops heading into the next part of Conference USA play. The early season jitters should be over. Now it’s time for the Tops to make their move.

Against ODU, Raneem Elgedawy was not her usual double-double type of self. She only had 14 points and seven rebounds. That’s a decent outing for most, but WKU needed her to step up big in this one and she was below her normal average in everything. A killer for her was her free throw shooting: 4-of-10 (40 percent).

With Collins debating his lineup, his three players he’s confused about starting were all awful and unproductive. Abdelgawad only played six minutes, scoring absolutely no points. Brewer played 24 minutes, went 2-of-6 from the floor with seven points, and just did not have enough of an impact for a 24-minute opportunity.

Sherry Porter has been in a funk of late. In this game, she did score eight points, but it was on 3-of-10 shooting. Sherry has proven to be a fourth or fifth scorer on this team. With no one having a great offensive game (credit to Old Dominion), one of these three borderline starters being an extra scorer would have been a huge asset. None did, and consequently, WKU fell 11 points short. WKU stood 2–3 in conference play after this stumble.

Saturday at Charlotte, 60–56 W

The Lady Topper bus drove into Charlotte Friday morning (total guess on the timing) desperate for a win. As they prepared for a battle against the 49ers, yet another really good conference opponent, the Lady Toppers absolutely knew they needed this one to remotely stay close in the standings. With Rice at 6–0, anyone losing is falling farther behind, especially considering WKU already owns a loss to the Owls.

If WKU lost this game, they could (and would have) dropped a full four games behind first placed Rice without a tiebreaker. Essentially, WKU would be fighting from the very bottom (tied for ninth) versus within reasonable distance (1.5 games) of everybody but Rice (6–0). Charlotte was in virtually the same position: If they lost, they would fall to what would end up being eighth place. Again, spoiler alert.

Both teams came out bludgeoning each other, trudging through much of the game in what kind of felt like a display of underachievement. WKU was 0-for-5 from the free-throw line, but thankfully Meral Abdelgawad (14 points, four rebounds, two steals, +11) was active, scoring eight of WKU’s 14 in the first. Charlotte outscored the Tops by only one despite WKU shooting under 40 percent and missing every attempt at the charity stripe.

WKU would ratchet up the intensity in the second, forcing six Charlotte turnovers and outscoring them despite again shooting worse than its opponent in the period. Western would regroup and make adjustments for the second half, heading to the locker room up two points.

In the third quarter, once again, both teams just bludgeoned each other to death, but tied at 35 with 2:55 left in the third, WKU went on a 10–2 run to finish the third quarter. WKU would see the first real separation for either team, heading into the fourth quarter up eight points.

That 10–2 run would prove massively crucial, as Charlotte would make a late run to cut the lead to three with possession of the ball twice in the final minute. Without that run, if all things were equal, WKU would have been down and lost the game in the final frame with the late surge from the 49ers. So many times, these games come down to a timely run.

In this case, perhaps the Lady Toppers’ season will have hinged on this game. Let’s not be overly dramatic, though. WKU is back in position and a lot of their fate depends on a combination of largely taking care of business and getting a little bit of help from other teams in the standings. Winning every game would guarantee a tie for third, and that is assuming perfection from everyone else when playing WKU, which is, of course, impossible since everyone plays everyone at least once.

WKU stands at such a better position now that they have won three of four games, especially after dealing with all five of the other conference favorites in their first six games. To come out at .500 is fairly acceptable. Now the Lady Tops get a week off and travel to Marshall in a game that they should be favored heavily.

WKU then gets a stretch where they only face two teams (Southern Miss and UTEP) currently ahead of them in the standings all the way until February 29, when the Tops get Middle Tennessee in Murfreesboro. This goes without saying, but this next month of basketball for the Lady Tops will either set them apart as one of two or three teams to beat, or they will flounder and end up drowning in the middle of the conference.

With about three more losses in conference, it would almost guarantee not qualifying for a bye in the Conference USA Tournament, something WKU has not missed since they didn’t reach ten total wins under Mary Taylor-Cowles in 2011–12, the season she was relieved of her duties and Michelle Clark-Heard took over the program.