Monday Musings: Sizing Up the WKU Roster After Rodney Howard's Commitment

With the commitment of Georgia Tech grad transfer Rodney Howard, is the WKU basketball roster complete?

The Hilltoppers’ 2023/24 basketball roster is just about complete after WKU garnered a big commitment from the biggest missing piece on the floor.

Big Red’s Reads - by Fletcher Keel

News to use regarding WKU, Conference USA and the collegiate athletic landscape as a whole.

• The biggest news regarding the Hilltoppers to break this week was with the signing of former Georgia Tech forward Rodney Howard, filling a desperate need ahead of Steve Lutz’s first year - a big man. Well, big man solidified. If our math is correct, the Tops are left with three scholarships. Our roster tracker has you up to speed on what the roster is looking like today. We’ll have more on what Howard’s addition to the roster means in a bit.

• For a second-straight week, WKU signee Teagan Moore showed out in an all-star game, this time helping propel Kentucky to a 94-90 win over Indiana. Moore led all Kentucky players with 31 points (he was only one of two double-figure scorers) and was two points behind Indiana’s Markus Burton, a Notre Dame signee, for the game’s leading scorer.

• Already enshrined both outside of LT Smith Stadium and at the Houch’s 50-yard line, WKU coaching legend Jimmy Feix has been nominated for the ultimate enshrinement: In the College Football Hall of Fame. For the fifth time, he’s been nominated for the ballot, and lets hope the fifth time is indeed the charm.

• Football preview season rambles on and yet another outlet has this upcoming season as a two-team race between the Hilltoppers and Liberty. Hero Sports has the Tops’ over/under win totals at 8.5, same as Liberty.

• The Hilltoppers are also the betting favorites to take home the C-USA title, with BetMGM listing the Tops at +135 title odds. I’m going to have to consult our own Jake Gary on what exactly that means, but it sounds great!

• Athlon got in on the C-USA predictions this week as well, with them also predicting the Hilltoppers as conference champs. “It's hard to pick against the Hilltoppers at No. 1. Even with a new play-caller (Drew Hollingshead), don't expect WKU's high-powered offense to miss a beat with quarterback Austin Reed and receiver Malachi Corley returning.,” Athlon writes.

• A quick, and rather interesting, recruiting note: 4-star Macon, Ga. quarterback Jakhari Williams has put WKU in his top five (along with Syracuse, Boston College, FAU and James Madison). If he does chose the Tops, he’d be the highest-rated player to commit to the program, according to 247Sports. It would also be a curious thing moving forward: Under Tyson Helton, WKU doesn’t have a tremendous track record of recruiting high school QB’s, opting instead to work the transfer portal. Which, make no mistake, has worked! But, if Williams does pick the Tops, I’m very interested in seeing how that plays out.

Lutz Gets His Big Man - by Matt McCay

For the most part, hiring former Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Head Coach Steve Lutz was met with general enthusiasm. His resume spoke for itself, coaching for two years and pulling a program with zero tradition straight into the NCAA Tournament.

Before his head coaching gig in South Texas, he was at Purdue and Creighton. So it was expected to have an explosion of intensity, right?

Well, we sat.

And we sat.

And we started to freak out.

And a few players made it clear of their intentions.

And then finally, we get a commitment. And then the dominos began to fall and become more of a comforting environment instead of utter disaster mode.

So, to say the addition of Rodney Howard to the Hilltoppers’ 2023-24 roster is a relief is a complete and utter understatement. We have gone from the high, to the lull to now looking at a legitimate roster. If not one other player commits and this roster represents the Red and White, I think people will be okay with it.

The roster still could use at least one more big body and could always use a “definite starter” type of commitment, but if this is the crew the Tops will roll with in 2023-24, this is good enough for year one of an exciting new era in WKU Basketball.

Howard, a Georgia Tech grad transfer, brings plenty of things to the table, most importantly of which is a tall body. More than his 6’10” frame, he actually brings some size (240+ pounds), as well as some Power 5 experience and athleticism, and a traditional low post presence to WKU, something they do not have without him.

He does not shoot, basically from anywhere on the floor, at this point. He did not score explosively in the ACC, although he was a solid producer over multiple seasons.

So is he guaranteed to be Dwight Coleby (who had far inferior stats from his Kansas days, by the way)? Is he guaranteed to even be a Jairus Hamilton type of player? Could he be better? We don’t know. He was comparable to an Anton Waters type while at GT, but his ceiling - and even floor - is way higher than Waters, simply because the talent and pure size is a different level than some of the other players that typically come to a “mid-major” type of school.

You may be asking, “So what?” or “What does he bring?”

I think the immediate obvious answer is “starting center”, unless someone else is brought in. However, he is a true traditional post-player. He’s not going much of anywhere besides down on the low block on both ends. Before Howard committed, WKU was looking at Fallou Diagne as its starting center. No disrespect to him, but it’s fair to say Diagne is an unproven everyday center and is still very raw. This provides an experienced body with bulk that can man the paint.

Big picture, I think this pickup puts WKU officially on the map to legitimately compete for a Conference USA title. Before this commitment, the attitude was, “Well, we know they shouldn’t completely suck this year.” Well, now, this fills the single biggest hole in the roster.

Without this pickup, WKU would’ve had only one truly tall player, and he is a finesse guy that likes to play outside more than inside. It completely resolves the biggest concern, so the floor and ceiling for expectations should come way up.

Western will not get completely and utterly dominated down low. Western will not be without at least one more obvious starter. This guy comes in and barring a five-star pickup out of nowhere - which our sources indicate is not on the horizon - he will start.

We still don’t know how the first year of #LutzGoTops era will go. However, Topper fans should feel good about the shape of the roster. Things seem to be going in the right direction, and it is so much nicer to deal with what feels like more of the “steady Eddie” approach instead of the drama-filled program that Rick Stansbury ran, betting all-in on risky players with huge potential, sometimes working it out and sometimes not even getting those elite players on the court.

Lutz seems to run a tighter ship and seems to hold higher standards physically. We shall see where this goes, but I think I stand in the majority by saying as long as WKU Basketball does not suck, we’ll survive the season and see what happens next year. This pretty much takes that off of the table and brings in higher expectations.

Lutz has been putting WKU basketball in position to make major chess moves toward that elusive NCAA Tournament berth, something that has eluded the program since 2013. WKU could be in position to flirt with, and even possibly be favored, to represent C-USA with a berth in the NCAA Tournament and Howard’s commitment only helps further that goal.