WKU Basketball Notebook: Tops and Lady Tops Sweep Sam Houston and Jax State, Both Sitting at 3rd in CUSA

Two different outlooks, the men are within a half game of first and clicking into place. The Ladies have struggled of late and look to be fighting to fend off Liberty for third place.

That’s more like it, Tops!

As we start rounding into the second half of February, now is the time to be solidifying and figuring it out. Although both WKU Basketball programs have had some up-and-down moments, both seem to be stabilizing for the most part.

The Hilltoppers seem to be firing on all cylinders, accomplishing something no one else in CUSA (and seemingly few teams across America) has done this season, and that is winning two road games in a row. Western Basketball is certainly trending in the right direction, winning both games fairly routinely, including beat La Tech Wednesday, a team that almost never loses at home.

With the win, WKU sits a half game out, controlling its destiny completely with the exception of Sam Houston State, which will likely own tiebreaker scenarios on WKU in March (WKU is 0-2 vs. SHSU). In virtually all possible seeding scenarios, Western needs Sam Houston to lose two more games than WKU the rest of the season, a tall ask. Nonetheless, it’s anybody’s one seed at this point, with everyone in the conference within three games of each other.

The Lady Toppers are in a bit of a different situation, having started out hot in conference USA and only winning three of its last seven conference games. However, the Lady Tops pulled off a massive come-from-behind victory against La Tech in Diddle Arena, following it up with clearly their best defensive performance of the year against Jacksonville State.

In the women’s standings, yes, the Topper sit third, but they are in a much more precarious situation. Basically four games behind first placed MTSU, the Tops need MTSU to lose at least five of its last seven to even possibly pass the Blue Raiders. FIU sits at 7-2, and WKU will need them to be at least one game worse than the Tops, in addition to needing to beat FIU on March 2.

Basically the Lady Tops are unlikely to climb into second, whereas the boys just need to hold serve and could win CUSA. The women’s side now has Liberty tied with WKU, and teams like NMSU, JSU, and UTEP all have legitimate hopes to surpass teams like Liberty and WKU. Liberty, NMSU, and UTEP in particular pose significant threats to WKU. NMSU and UTEP both get WKU out west this week. If WKU can’t take one of those two, they could drop into seventh by week’s end.

With Destiny Salary still seemingly in the dog house coming off of a suspension and Acacia Hayes presumably out for at least a few more weeks, the Lady Tops will have to figure out how to overcome, the Lady Tops need to come together with whatever pieces they have and figure out how to score consistently.

Western Men Go 2-0 on the Road

Toppers Shock Conference USA, Win at Tech for First Time since 1998

If you didn’t see the article immediately following the La Tech win, it goes into full detail. If you want the full recap, click here.

To summarize for those that weren’t tuned in, the Tops basically dominated La Tech in their gym. There was more to it than that, with La Tech taking a substantial early lead (21-9 at 13:43), but from there, WKU would outscore La Tech 44-22 to take a 53-43 lead at 15:21 remaining in the second half.

La Tech made its run, and took a few leads in the middle of the second half. However, WKU was largely in control of the pace, kept La Tech’s forces down low in check, and pulled out a couple possession lead at the end to seal the deal, 81-76.

Toppers Sweep Harper, Choke Out the Gamecocks in Best Defensive Performance of the Year, 70-59.

Against Jacksonville State, the question was whether Kyky Tandy would go off, and whether he would have any support. Well, in truly sad news for CUSA, Kyky Tandy twisted his ankle early on. He did score 13, but he did it shooting 4-of-17 from the field and only making one three pointer. Conference USA’s leading scorer at over 18 per game, Tandy can easily overcome his team’s lack of scoring depth.

As far as whether he had help, he had some help at the very beginning of the game from Juwan Perdue, who scored eight of his ten in the first half. However, no other Gamecock would score more than seven total.

That made it difficult overall for Jacksonville State to overcome a quality Western Kentucky team. However, JSU made WKU play to its pace. The game was really played at JSU’s pace, although WKU did score 42 in the second half. Overall, WKU was only able to put up 70, but the Topper defense won this one.

JSU is not an explosive offensive team, but Tandy is an incredible player, obviously. When he is average to below average, his team just really has trouble being good enough offensively. Brandon Newman and Teagan Moore drew most of the assignment, and the grad transfer/true freshman combo really made his life difficult with their length and lateral quickness. Western was able to keep the Gamecocks out of the paint this game. Although JSU did have 36 points in the paint compared to Western’s 38, the Tops made JSU earn their buckets, making life difficult on the perimeter with their constant overplay on screens. This particularly gave JSU fits, and WKU’s interior rotations were as crisp as they’ve been all season to run Steve Lutz’s “sticky screen” defense.

All told, WKU held Jax State to less than 38 percent shooting and 1-for-14 from deep. Including four games against non-Division I opponents, WKU held its opponent in the 50s for the first time all season against Jacksonville State. This win showed WKU can win without shooting the lights out. It showed they can play defense without Khristian Lander and Jalen Jackson, and it showed Conference USA that the Tops can follow up a big win with a double digit win against a decent opponent despite not playing its best offensive game. If Lander were to come back, he would add another dimension to this team, but they can also certainly win big without him, as well.

Topper Tidbits

• In a conference first in the nation in home court advantage, WKU is the first team in CUSA to win two in a row on the road, let alone a back-to-back.

• WKU wins in Ruston for the first time since before Y2K (1998)

• The Hilltoppers sit in third place .5 games out of first place.

• The Tops held La Tech’s Daniel Batcho to his lowest point total for the entire season (6). His previous low was eight points at Sam Houston.

• WKU held Kyky Tandy of JSU to his fourth (tied) lowest point total of the season, while also holding him to his lowest three point shooting percentage and second lowest overall shooting percentage on the year. Given his 25 in the first meeting, slowing him down proved the difference.

Lady Tops Stabilize, Find a Way to Maintain Third Place After Recent Slump

Lady Tops Pull Off Massive Comeback vs. La Tech, Hold Lady Techsters to 20 in Second Half

The Western Kentucky Lady Toppers are thankfully out of a rough patch, and hopefully moving on with fresh life this week. In the meantime, y’all the first half of this game was awful. Against a team that is still yet to win three conference games, WKU got down by 19 early. They clawed back, but it was like pit-of-the-stomach-wanting-to-throw-up bad. It looked hopeless without Acacia Hayes and Destiny Salary.

Now, thankfully, Salary had a one game suspension and was fully engaged on the bench and played the next game. But WKU will struggle without Hayes and a starting Salary to penetrate and get any kind of easy bucket that is not a runaway steal from WKU’s trapping press.

Western turned the jets on in the final 23 minutes, outscoring La Tech 50-23 after being down 33-14 with 2:52 left in the first half. Ultimately, the Tops won going away, 64-56. Now, unfortunately, La Tech is an 8-16 team on the season, so this victory, although needed, does prove anything in CUSA. However, it got the job done and gave the Lady Tops some confidence that they could play some defense and score if they would play engaged and confident.

Lady Tops Win Defensive Slog 54-45 Over JSU, Ultimately Finishing the Weekend Tied for Third Place

WKU certainly brought its defense from the second half against La Tech to Diddle Arena Saturday afternoon. Although a team that scores nearly 60 per game, the Tops were able to hold JSU 15 points under their season average.

Josey Gilvin had one of her best games as a Topper, scoring 14 points, nabbing four steals, grabbing three rebounds, two monstrous blocks (they were both amazing), and only turning the ball over one time.

Shooting only 33 percent for the game, WKU really struggle to put the ball in the basket. However, the Lady Toppers were disciplined on both sides of the ball, forcing 23 turnovers and only committing 12, a number they rarely achieve offensively. Jacksonville State did outrebound WKU 44-36, but it wasn’t a dominant performance on the glass like WKU has consistently allowed in 2023-24. This was much more respectable and acceptable.

The Lady Toppers obviously have some work to do, and if they are really going to be without Acacia Hayes for the foreseeable future, players like Destiny Salary and Karris Allen need to provide some non-small guard punch. Alexis Mead and Teresa Faustino are tough and know how to contribute offensively, but they are not what makes WKU’s offense fast-paced. Without Salary and Hayes on the court, WKU’s offensive possessions are much more grinding and eating up clock. Faustino in the halfcourt is not going to just blow past everybody. 5’5” Alexis Mead is not going to intimidate people in the halfcourt inside. Now, both are scrappy and gifted and can do things in transition, but in a halfcourt game, WKU desperately needs some players who can knife into the lane consistently and get easy buckets, even if there’s not much room in there.

Acacia Hayes can turn a corner and make an easy layup in the halfcourt. Destiny Salary is an athlete that score in multiple ways without help. Karris Allen is somebody who probably needs to contribute a little more without Hayes around. This might be a surprising addition to this list, but a person like Caitlin Staley is another person who could score in the halfcourt given opportunity. She is the most raw and all of that, but developing her into a post threat could pay dividends for Greg Collins and the Tops.

Next Time Out

The Tops and Lady Tops are in the middle of a typical Saturday-to-Thursday “break”, if that’s even realistic to call it that. It might give the bodies an extra day to heal from those grinding Jacksonville State victories.

The Lady Toppers have a really tough travel schedule to manage, heading all the way to El Paso, Texas for a matchup Thursday with UTEP. Western prevailed 66-65 in the final seconds in Diddle to a UTEP team that has disappointed thus far this season. The Lady Tops will then head to Las Cruces, New Mexico on Saturday to avenge one of their worst performances of the year when they fell at home 50-44 to a surprisingly big and athletic NMSU team.

The Hilltoppers return to the friendly confines of Diddle Arena to avenge two road losses at the hands of UTEP and NMSU. Western absolutely soiled itself at NMSU, melting down an incomprehensibly large 23 point lead. That was the absolute low point of the Toppers’ season. Well, perhaps parlaying that with awful defense at UTEP may have put WKU at its lowest. However, from there, WKU has won five of six and three in a row.

ESPN’s BPI gives WKU more than a 75 percent chance to avenge its loss at UTEP, and then Western is expected to be even more likely to win against NMSU with nearly an 87 percent chance to win. Combined, that still means WKU is expected to sweep this week 2-out-of-3 times.

It’s a huge opportunity for both teams to solidify their current standing, but also for the men, they could possibly lead the conference at week’s end.

Despite the road losses and frustrations (and injury impact) in late January, Western Kentucky is rounding into shape at the right time. The Tops should frankly sweep all four of these games, but the men are sitting in prime position to really establish themselves as the best team in Conference USA.