WKU Basketball: Anderson, Hollingsworth Spark Tops To 67–51 Win Over North Texas

Josh Anderson scored the first five points for Western Kentucky, and six of WKU’s first eight points overall, and the Hilltoppers more…

Josh Anderson scored the first five points for Western Kentucky, and six of WKU’s first eight points overall, and the Hilltoppers more than doubled up North Texas in the early stages of the first half and never looked back in a 67–51 win over the Mean Green in WKU’s first game of the 2019 Conference USA Tournament.

The two teams started off rather sloppily, with only 10 combined points scored in the opening five-plus minutes but in that time span, Josh Anderson took the game into his own hands, scoring the first five points of the game and and six of the first eight points for the Tops overall.

But, once things got going for WKU, they were nearly unstoppable. The Hilltoppers who used a 17–5 run in the middle stages of the first half to take a 24–8 lead with 6:59 to play in the opening frame.

From there, the Hilltoppers cruised to a 31–16 lead and never let up (what a nice change of pace) in the second half, getting it done with the second unit for nearly 50% of the back 20 minutes and, essentially, waltzed their way to a 67–51 win.

This was the performance we’ve been waiting for from WKU all year long. What we’ve seen in short stints (and against Marshall) from Anderson we saw all day long and Taveion Hollingsworth was freshman Taveion, leading the Tops in scoring with 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting.

If there’s one nit pick, it’s that Charles Bassey didn’t touch the ball enough (stop me if you’ve heard that one before), but he was a force to be reckoned with on defense.

Next for the Tops is Southern Miss, who WKU has beaten twice this year. Tip off is set for 3 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network on Friday.

Final Stats