WKU Athletics With Massive Week Ahead
WKU Basketball is looking to climb back into a top six seed, the Lady Tops are looking to solidify third place, and Softball plays Kentucky on The Hill Friday and Saturday.
It’s put up or shut up time in basketball world. Saturday marks the first of March, and you know what means: It’s the home stretch before all but one team per gender ultimately gets their dreams crushed.
WKU Basketball sits eighth in Conference USA but only a couple of games out of fourth with four games to play. The Lady Toppers are pretty insulated on both sides, two games separate from the closest in the standings. However, they play both of those in the next couple of weeks, so they could potentially move up or down a spot by season’s end.
WKU Baseball is 6-1 and faces Central Michigan. WKU Softball plays perhaps the single most interesting games on campus: At home vs. Kentucky, Evansville, and someone else I forgot. *Checking…* Tennessee Tech. I’m sure that one will be riveting. But of course the main draw is in-state foe, the Kentucky Wildcats, who are receiving votes in the polls.
WKU Basketball With a Huge Chance to Climb at Least Two Spots This Week
Tops Head to UTEP to Face a Difficult Miners Team that Poses Unique Challenges
UTEP Basketball may not be a national brand—although I’d challenge basketball fans to come up with five college basketball brands that play major roles in movies without naming “Texas Western” in “Glory Road”—but UTEP plays a unique style under Joe Golding that puts massive pressure on the opponent with an intense pressure style of basketball. It’s not necessarily a full-court press, but it’s more intense denial of passing lanes and a suffocating defense that makes you feel like you have no options.
WKU defeated UTEP at home by a few points (78-74) on January 30 in Bowling Green, shooting over 55 percent from the floor and enjoying the spoils of Khristian Lander and Don McHenry scoring a combined 48 points on only 26 shots attempted. The Tops did have 18 turnovers, but the magnificent shooting and McHenry’s ability to get to the cup overshadowed UTEP’s ability to create chaos. In another fluky portion of the performance, WKU outrebounded UTEP 33-31.
None of that is likely to happen again, so the Tops need to find some magic in the Mines of El Paso Thursday night. The Tops play at 8 PM on CBS Sports Network Thursday night. With a win, WKU climbs into sixth place immediately with current tiebreakers putting the Tops on top of La Tech and UTEP to break a three way gridlock with all three teams sitting at 7-8.
~Matt McCay
Toppers Looking to Duplicate 32 Point Blowout Performance, Will Settle for a Hard Fought Road W
Looking ahead to Saturday, the Tops continue their road trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
New Mexico State is currently standing in 4th in Conference USA. Also, they’re enjoying the spoils of a three game winning streak with victories over FIU & Kennesaw State, but most notably a road victory at first place Jacksonville State on February 20th. For most of the season, it’s been hot and cold for the Aggies. While they’ve opened up the season with four straight conference wins, a losing streak soon followed and eventually it because a cycle for how their season is going. The same cycle of streaks were trending during the Tops’ 101-69 home victory on February 1st. Since that day, the Aggies have gone 3-2.
Based on averages, Christian Cook remains the leading scorer for New Mexico State with 13.2 points per game. However, he has not led the team in scoring since January 18 when the Aggies lost to Liberty. Instead, it’s been back and forth between Zawdie Jackson, Robert Carpenter, and Peter Filipovity, whose efforts usually come from off the bench. The latter was recently named CUSA Player of the Week for almost getting back-to-back games with double doubles.
WKU and the Aggies fight it out at 5 PM Saturday on ESPN+.
~Alex Sherfield
Dave’s Diva Diamonds: Lady Toppers Looking to Lock in at Least Third Place, Keep Within Striking Distance of Liberty
Player Spotlight of the Week - Destiny Salary #1
Destiny Salary #1 is a 6’ senior guard from Jonesboro, Arkansas. After one year at Tennessee and two years at Ole Miss, Destiny joined the Lady Toppers a few games into the 2023-2024 season and immediately made an impact, scoring 20 in her first game and averaging over 12 points per game in her two seasons at WKU. Destiny is a consistent contributor on offense and defense and a very important player, plus she has the ability to score 20+ on any given night. this year Salary averages 12.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.3 steals per contest.
For Western to do well the remainder of the season, Destiny needs to hit close to her averages every night and having a monster game here or there will help too.
Lady Toppers Host UTEP (10-15) on Thursday at 6:30
The Lady Miners leading scorers are Ivane Tensaie averaging 13.1 points and Portia Adams at 10.3 points per game. Ndak Mbengue averages a team high 7.3 rebounds per game. The team averages 61.8 points, 36.2 rebounds, 12.9 assists and 17.8 turnovers per game. UTEP comes into the contest in last place in CUSA, so in theory, WKU should take care of business at home and send the Miners back to the West Texas mountains with another loss.
Western Looks for Revenge on NMSU on Senior Night (15-12) on Saturday at 2pm
The Aggies are in fourth and two games behind WKU in the CUSA standings playing catchup with four games left. With Sam Houston and La Tech being two winnable games the last week of the season, an upset in BG is a key first step to moving ahead of Western. New Mexico State averages 65.6 points per game and is led by Molly Kaiser. A 5’8” guard averaging 21.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.9 steals, and 2.5 turnovers per game, Kaiser does it all. Fanta Gassama adds 8.9 rebounds per game. These two are the main players to watch out for, so containing the rest of the team is key for WKU.
~David McCay
Diamond Topper Update: Tops Looking for 9-1, Softball Looking to Upset UK Twice
Western Kentucky Baseball takes on Central Michigan at The Nick this weekend. At 2-6, the Chippewas only won 17 games all of last season. The Tops should sweep this one given that CMU has only two games they’ve scored six or more runs and the Tops have a pitching staff giving up a 2.67 ERA through seven games. Hopefully they don’t take the same approach as my commentary, but in theory, they should take care of business.
WKU Softball takes on its second power conference team (played at Georgia Tech twice in early February) of the year in in-state rival Kentucky. Since Y2K, WKU has a decent history competing with the Wildcats, winning nine of 26 meetings, four of which have come at the WKU Softball Complex. With UK getting some votes in the polls, the Lady Toppers have a huge opportunity to gain some respect in the national landscape of college softball. The Lady Toppers also play Tennessee Tech and Evansville.
~Matt McCay
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GO TOPS!!!!