Don McHenry has seemed to turn the corner. So have the Hilltoppers.
A weekend sweep, preseason baseball accolades and an uneven weekend for the Lady Tops. Start your week with what you missed from a weekend of Hilltopper action.
🌅 Good morning. For the first time since conference play began, the Hilltoppers are on a three-game winning streak and it feels like this team is finding its groove.
About This Weekend…
🔥It was a statement weekend for the Hilltoppers, winning two games in starkly different - if not equally impressive - ways, taking down two of the top three teams in the Conference USA standings in the process.
😤 Gritty Win Over UTEP
Three weeks ago, the Hilltoppers lose this game. The absences of Babacar Faye, Julius Thedford and Teagan Moore would have loomed too large and WKU wouldn’t have been prepared to absorb blows, especially in the second half, to come out on top.
But, maybe a tide has turned?
Leading at the half by five - thanks in part to holding the Miners to shooting 35% from the floor in the opening frame - the Hilltoppers jumped out to a nine-point lead, thanks to a pair of threes from Khristian Lander and giving the Tops a 42-33 less than two minutes into the half.
Then, a punch: UTEP rattled off a 10-0 run, with the lead changing hands in the process, at the half’s midway point.
In weeks past, it may have been too much. A 19-point shift over eight minutes would have done the Hilltoppers in. But not this time.
WKU rattled off an 8-0 run of their own and from there, the ship was righted, and a rock fight ensued, with neither team holding a lead larger than four points inside the final nine minutes.
Shooting 60% from the field in the second half and having Don McHenry close the door - scoring 10 of WKU’s final 16 points - the Hilltoppers escaped Diddle with a four-point victory.
- Fletcher Keel
🤯 Did We Really Just See That?
The Hilltoppers took Thursday’s win and steamrolled it into success rarely seen in recent memory, smashing New Mexico State Saturday afternoon.
It was a seemingly tight battle for most of the first half, with WKU eventually pulling away a 42-34 lead at halftime. However, it was an utter domination from the Tops in the second half. New Mexico State’s interior defense was no match for how the Tops were able to pull through with their shot selections.
McHenry led all scorers with 27 points, doing so from off the bench, while Tyrone Marshall wowed the Diddle Arena crowd with a 24-point effort, his best single-game performance of the season.
In the second half alone, the Tops outscored the Aggies 59-35 for their largest lead of the game, at 35 points, and won 101-69, just the second 100-point performance (in a conference game) for WKU since the 2018 season.
A team built for success from distance, everything went right for the Hilltoppers from beyond the arc. Led by McHenry and Marshall, the Tops shot 57.9% from distance in the second half alone.
- Alex Sherfield
🤠 From The Other Side
James Baca, of the New Mexico State Substack The Aggregator, had this to say about WKU’s dominant win.
But 101-69 is more indicative of a WKU team that couldn’t miss at times. For 18 minutes in the first half, this game looked competitive, and then it didn’t all of a sudden.
So many people online quick to blame poor game-planning by Hooten, but his post-game interview kind of mentioned that they saw this barrage coming but couldn’t stop it.
🏀 Return of the Don
There’s been some chatter in the WKU corner of the internet about the play of Don McHenry since conference play began. Whether or not that chatter is founded in reality (spoiler: it mostly isn’t), he has been coming back to life lately after something of a mid-season dip.
After averaging 24.2 points per game from Dec. 7-21 (a stretch where WKU went 5-0), the former Indian Hills Community College guard’s production slipped.
At the turn of the year, beginning with Dec. 29’s loss to Michigan, McHenry averaged just 12.5 points per game over a four-game stretch, culminating in an 8-point performance in the loss against Jacksonville State.
During that stretch, he shot just 27.1%, averaging four made field goals a game.
However, it appears the Tops’ floor general is back.
Since Jan. 11, the Hilltoppers are 4-2 and McHenry is back to his mid-December production levels, averaging 19.8 points per game and shooting at a 40.7% clip from the floor.
He’s also logged four-straight 20-point performances, the longest of the season. (He previously had a three-game 20-point streak, from Dec. 14-21.)
WKU’s tournament hopes were always going to hinge on what happens in Huntsville. If McHenry’s upswing is here to stay, and he gets production from an accomplice each night (like we saw from Lander and Marshall, respectively, this weekend) for the season’s final month-plus, don’t count the Hilltoppers out just yet.
- Fletcher Keel
⛹️♀️ Lady Tops’ Uneven Weekend, Get-Right Games Coming?
The Lady Toppers have surprised us all this year. Surely not a soul predicted six total losses heading into the first full week in February. Sitting 128th in the NET rankings, the Lady Tops have exceeded expectations and sit within striking distance in CUSA.
The next few weeks will prove crucial, though. With a loss to NMSU, the Tops are now a few games from plummeting down the standings, whereas continuing to win puts pressure on Middle Tennessee and Liberty, who are tied for first, two games ahead of the third place Toppers.
This past week, the Tops showed signs of cracking at UTEP, blowing a solid lead and seizing control to finish off the Miners. Against NMSU, the Tops did exactly the same, but they did not come back after blowing a sizable lead. The Tops were up 13 in the second half, only to find themselves down eight, eventually settling on a five point margin as time expired. This snapped their six game winning streak.
The question, really, is whether the Lady Tops respond. Just like beating Middle and snapping their 33 game win streak, the question was whether they would go and do something with it. They have.
But now they’ve lost a game against a team near the league’s bottom. So how do they respond? Kennesaw State and Jacksonville State both have losing records, so WKU should take care of business. So will they? Or will they completely fall apart down the stretch? Let’s see where it goes from here, but these two home games could be just what the doctor ordered to get the Lady Tops back on track.
- Matt McCay
⚾ Countdown to First Pitch: 11
Three years ago, Western Kentucky baseball was - frankly - not in a healthy place.
They hadn’t won 30 games under two different head coaches, had made just two Conference USA Tournament appearances and had a negative run differential nines since the 2012 season.
This year, the Tops are firmly one of the “teams to watch” in the conference, having been picked third in this year’s preseason media poll.
The preseason ranking is the highest for WKU since joining CUSA and is the highest since they were picked to finish tied for fourth with FAU when both programs were still in the Sun Belt.
For comparison’s sake, the Tops were picked to finish 10th - dead last - in 2023 ahead of Marc Rardin’s first season.
According to preseason expectations, which are almost always correct and never once are wrong, a trend evolves from the conference and puts the Tops in an interesting place in the pecking order.
At the top are the two programs you’d expect to be there - DBU and La Tech. Underneath WKU is an “anything can happen” third and fourth tier. But WKU stands all alone in the second tier and, if they can get a bounce or two to go their way in Lynchburg, they might have plans on Memorial Day (and beyond).
⚾ In addition to being picked third in the preseason poll, two Hilltoppers were selected to the preseason All-Conference team: Outfielder Ethan Lizama and RHP Dawson Hall were named to the squad. It’s the second-straight preseason honor for Hall.
⚾ While not a “snub,” don’t be surprised of transfer infielder Kyle Hvidsten lands on the All-CUSA team at season’s end. Named a Top 50 Impact JUCO transfer by D1Baseball, Hvidsten hit 17 home runs and logged 70 RBI while slugging (total number of bases a player records per at-bat) of .753, all three numbers that would have led the Hilltoppers last year.
- Fletcher Keel
RIP Coach Chumbley
A short note here, but a very important one:
Thursday night, WKU’s Head Coach of Cross Country/Track and Field, Brent Chumbley passed away unexpectedly.
Per WKU release, “He was 55 years old and is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and daughter, Alex, who is a freshman at WKU.”
By all accounts, he was a great coach and a wonderful man. Towel Rack expresses our deepest condolences. Say a prayer for Coach Chumbley’s family, players, and co-workers at WKU.
- Matt McCay
Don’t you want to be connected with the only WKU outlet that provides real, unbiased (well, definitely not this article) perspective with live tweeting, breaking news, a podcast, and full-length articles? And good luck finding an outlet that provides comprehensive Lady Topper coverage. No one else does exactly what we do, and it’s all for FREE! There’s no charge for the one stop shop that is The Towel Rack!
Towel Rack is completely free and will always be free if you don’t want to give a dime. There truly is zero obligation, and there will be no guilt trip if you never contribute.
However, for those that are able or willing, if you’d like to support the Towel Rack’s efforts (like traveling with teams, credentials, podcast expenses, state/federal business licensing, administration costs, etc.)…click the button below!
Your donation is valued and appreciated. We strive to be Johnny Hilltopper’s number one resource for real information. Thanks for all that you’ve done over the years, Hilltopper fans!
GO TOPS!!!!