Lady Topper Hoops: WKU Looking Stronger Than Last Season In Pre-Thanksgiving Schedule
Unlike last year, the Lady Toppers have not been gobbled up by the competition
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Last season, the Lady Tops had their worst season in history, only winning seven of 23 games. Despite having an all-time great player in Raneem Elgedawy (who, granted was quarantined in Egypt due to COVID concerns) and some other good pieces, somehow the Lady Tops didn’t jell and never really sniffed any kind of opportunity to feel good about “the COVID year”.
But so far this season, the Lady Tops have upended some disturbing trends from last season, and at 3-3, they are already nearly halfway to their win total from last season.
How have the Lady’s looked to open the campaign?
vs. West Virginia State (Exhibition - W, 112-72)
Heading into this season, I would say the Lady Topper faithful were probably pretty full of trepidation. After massive roster turnover and an obviously down year, Topper faithful were just hoping to see a win, and hopefully see some talent. Well, to the tune of 112-72, the Lady Toppers routed the visitors. WKU forced 37 turnovers and everyone who played contributed. It was the most points scored by the Lady Tops in any game since scoring 115 on Lamar in 1998. So if nothing else, we learned immediately that this team can score.
vs. Purdue (L, 79-69)
Facing a Power Five foe is always tough for a mid-major, regardless of how good that Power Five is within their conference. They always have talent, and they’re usually bigger, faster, and stronger. In this case, hanging with Purdue at all, even though they’re not the best Power Five women’s basketball program, was an improvement from last year. The Tops fell to Purdue 79-69. No question, this team will be better than last year.
vs. North Carolina A&T (W, 86-76)
WKU continued its high scoring, extinguishing NC A&T by 10, 86-76 on a neutral court in Manhattan, Kansas. A&T may not be a very good team, but stacking wins is nice, and to a program that grew used to losing to bad programs, the Tops exorcised that demon. Another nice step was winning away from Diddle. WKU only had two wins away from home in 2020-21.
@ Kansas St. (L, 76-44)
Kansas State seems like they may be decent this season. Last year, they only had nine wins. They should improve on that total. Regardless, it’s okay to get blown out by a Power Five on the road, all things considered. It would have been nice to see the Tops score more than 44, or to give up less than 76. It’s not exactly thrilling, but this was to be expected.
vs. UT Martin (L, 63-47)
In what has arguably been the most disappointing performance so far of the season, the Lady Tops followed up their blowout loss to Kansas State by laying an egg against UT Martin, again scoring less than 50 points in the effort.
vs. Kentucky St. (W, 96-59)
WKU stacks another win, and again, the Tops score in the 90s and beat an inferior opponent with ease. WKU has established an expectation of probably averaging in the upper 70s to 80s this season, and they are going to give you 40 minutes of intense pressing defense.
vs. Indiana St. (W, 83-65)
The Lady Tops faced some adversity in this game, falling down four at halftime. But WKU would only come out blazing to start the second half, outscoring the Sycamores by 22 in the second half. WKU makes it back to .500, something they did not accomplish at all last season, nor did they even come remotely close.
Up Next
WKU’s schedule so far has not been remotely as brutal as least season’s. Then again, maybe that’s a really good thing. WKU has winnable games in the non-conference slate for the most part, and then comes C-USA. I like the strategy of having a much softer schedule to build confidence for a young team.
WKU gets old OVC foe Tennessee State Sunday at 2 p.m. WKU should likely be favored, but Tennessee State has actually gotten off to a really good start this season. Last year, they were 0-22. This season, they have a winning record early on at 3-2, including wins against Georgia State and North Alabama. They didn’t get completely blasted out of the gym by Kansas, so it shows some decent quality.
Going forward, WKU draws Bellarmine on the road, Tennessee Tech at home, then goes on the road to Miami of Ohio after finals. To finish off December, the Tops travel to Fairleigh Dickinson and then come back a little closer to home at Belmont. Those last three should be a step up in competition, but they should get the Lady Tops good and sharp heading into C-USA play.
Lady Topper head coach Greg Collins is in his final contract year, so hopefully he can do what he needs to do, get this program back on track, and earn himself a contract extension. But pay attention to these ladies. First of all, they work hard and play a fun style. Second of all, they may just turn out to be a pretty decent team this year. With so much youth, watch for a surge later as they continue to jell throughout the season.