Lady Topper Notebook: Lady Toppers Sweep the Week, Take Back First Place
The Western Kentucky Lady Toppers came into a crucial week needing to win the rest of their games and see three combined losses from UAB…
The Western Kentucky Lady Toppers came into a crucial week needing to win the rest of their games and see three combined losses from UAB and Rice. They won their games and got two losses, when UAB defeated Rice, and UAB lost to Charlotte at home on Saturday afternoon. Standing third at the beginning of the week, WKU now sits atop the standings by half a game.
If both WKU and UAB were to win out, UAB would claim the regular season Conference USA championship by tiebreaker, along with the coveted number one seed in the C-USA Tournament.
WKU faces three more winnable games against Charlotte at home, at Southern Miss, and at UTEP. UAB faces a much tougher schedule, taking on MTSU, La Tech, North Texas, and UTSA. WKU is hoping for one more loss from UAB to claim a regular season title and face a presumably easier road with a higher seed.
The Lady Toppers dominated competition this week, winning by an average of 21.5 points per contest. Most notably, WKU dismantled MTSU on the road Thursday, outscoring the Blue Raiders in every quarter and completely dominating play. MTSU, a perennial conference power, was never in the game.
In Saturday’s action, WKU came out sluggishly, only outscoring Marshall 13–10 in the first frame. WKU’s typical double-headed monster was great as usual, combining for 47 of the Toppers’ 77 points on the night. WKU finished the night with a 77–50 victory. Marshall opened up the offensive floodgates in garbage time, scoring 26 of their 50 in the final quarter, or WKU’s win would have been even more impressive.
The picture looks much more clear cut for WKU after Saturday. To have a real chance to take home the top seed on March 3, the Lady Toppers need to take care of their business and win their remaining games and hope UAB drops another contest. Expecting a UAB team with four overall losses to lose two of four is unrealistic.
News and Notes
With the 77–50 win against Marshall Saturday, Head Coach Michelle Clark-Heard notched her 150th win as head coach of WKU.
With a guaranteed four more games remaining on the year, senior Tashia Brown is averaging nearly 23 points per game. Tashia has an outside shot at reaching 800 points in a single season, but a more realistic goal would be 771, which would overtake Crystal Kelly’s all-time mark set in 2006–2007. Tashia is already 5th in scoring all-time at WKU.
Ivy Brown is averaging a double-double. She would be the first Lady Topper to do so since Chastity Gooch in 2013–14.
The Lady Toppers clinched a 20 win season for the sixth consecutive year Saturday against Marshall. WKU has won at least 22 games in every season under Clark-Heard.