Lady Toppers: Keys to Victory Against La Tech

The Western Kentucky Lady Toppers are finally back where they need to be in Conference USA. After sweeping the Florida schools at home with…

The Western Kentucky Lady Toppers are finally back where they need to be in Conference USA. After sweeping the Florida schools at home with two fairly straightforward victories, life gets a little more difficult as the Tops head to the deep south for some tough match-ups against Louisiana Tech Thursday and Southern Miss Saturday.

La Tech is a .500 team, but don’t let that fool you: At home, they are 9–3 and completely different from their 1–7 selves on the road. With wins against Top 50 MTSU at home, Arkansas State, Memphis, and at Little Rock, this team is good enough to beat anyone, especially any mid-major, and especially at home.

The Tops are a fascinating case of a team that doesn’t shoot as well as its opponents (.419 vs. .424), but the Lady Toppers constrict their opponents by making more free throws, forcing turnovers, and rebounding.

So what do the Lady Tops need to do to beat La Tech on the road?

Keys to Victory

Deal With the Off-the-court Pressure

Ultimately, being great comes with pressure. WKU absolutely needs these two wins this week. One way or another, WKU could be sitting pretty or wringing their hands sweating by the end of the week. Both of these teams are more than capable. Western is also sitting hoping for an at-large bid, so losing more than one more game to a bad team will probably ruin their chances for an at-large. Ultimately, ladies, suck it up and deal with it. Chastity and Alexis did it. Ivy and Tashia did it. Now you do it. It’s your turn now, girls. Make it happen.

Crash the Boards

Honestly, I don’t care what else Greg Collins does strategically or anything else. If WKU can dominate the boards like they have lately (170–121 in the last four games), I see La Tech having trouble finding enough ways to score to keep up with the Lady Tops. I would tell my players to relentlessly crash the defensive boards, and to strategically crash the offensive ones. Obviously in elite level ball, it is not prudent for five players to try to rebound and allow run out to cherry pickers running up the weak side of the court. However, at least three could crash the boards on the offensive glass.

WKU outclasses its opponents on the boards by four per game. La Tech loses them by two per game. Six rebounds is a huge margin, and if WKU can keep up its pattern of late, how could La Tech, a team that has only scored 80 points four times and is 2–8 when scoring under 70 (3–8 if you count exactly 70), find a way to score enough to beat the Tops, a team that only gives up 65 and scores 71 points per game on average?

Deal With the On-the-court Pressure

Not only are the Tops dealing with pressure from the standings and at-large contention, but they’ll also be dealing with a La Tech Lady Techsters squad that forces 19 turnovers per game. Meanwhile, they do turn it over 16.7 times per game. Translation: If this game favors La Tech, it will be messy and ugly. WKU should go for a fast-paced, clean-ish type of battle. The less stoppages, the better. La Tech loves to draw fouls, stop play, and force you to throw it out of bounds and go set up its offense. Despite all of that, La Tech does not shoot well and allows its opponents to rebound and shoot better than they do.

Somebody Else Needs to Show Up

I don’t care who it is, honestly. But Elgedawy and Dee Givens are not going to average 40 and 20 every week. Whitney Creech was decent this past week, but was not exceptional. She can’t afford to be pedestrian very often, either. I don’t care if it’s Sherry Porter (if healthy), Meral Abdelgawad, Alexis Brewer, Fatou Pouye, or the water girl, somebody has to contribute something in the points column. The bench always does a good job rebounding (10+ rebounds average from the bench), but they just do not score very often (a tick less than ten points per game). Meral Abdelgawad continues to be streaky. She can take over, and then she ceases to exist. Sherry Porter is a great defensive player, but her offense is spotty.

If WKU is going to be great, it has to have a third great player and either a starting lineup that is dynamic and scores 70 every night by itself, or a bench that will step up and have a double digit scorer every once in a while. How many times has a WKU bench player scored ten points this year? Three times. That’s it. That’s pitiful for a team that runs eight or nine deep on most nights.

Hold La Tech Under 42 Percent

La Tech shoots 40.2 percent on the season. If WKU could hold them under 42 percent, surely this would likely win the game. WKU would have to be decidedly awful to not win a game like that given its tendencies to constrict the opponent. When WKU holds its opponents to exactly 42.0 percent or less, the Tops are 11–1 on the year. When they allow more than that, they are 3–5 on the season. That is pretty distinctive. Be average or better defensively and you win almost every time.

Prediction

I think this is a good match-up for WKU. Sure, this is on the road, and La Tech plays better on the road. However, the overall tendencies are difficult to overcome. WKU is a great rebounding team, especially of late. If the Tops kill the Lady Techsters on the glass, forget it. WKU should win by double digits. If WKU plays some great defense, La Tech will need an equally mammoth effort, like when North Texas shot 31 percent against WKU and won.

If WKU can take care of the ball, I think that pretty much guarantees a win, as well. In other words, looking at the numbers, I would be shocked if WKU actually loses. They may struggle, and they may lose. But it will be against the grain and an odd way to lose, one way or another.

I believe the Lady Tops are going to get locked in here down the stretch and make a run. They won’t win every game, but I believe they are playing good basketball, and the FIU game was probably a good wake-up call, showing them they must show up every night.

I’ve got WKU winning fairly easily with a final score of Western Kentucky 75–Louisiana Tech 59.