WKU Basketball: Pre-Conference Tournament Notebook

The Conference USA tournament is here! And, while the Tops will have to wait another day to begin their post season, there’s plenty to look…

The Conference USA tournament is here! And, while the Tops will have to wait another day to begin their post season, there’s plenty to look forward to as we all have fresh, sweet hopes and dreams of WKU making a deep run into this year’s tournament.

On the women’s side of things, we’re hoping to see the Lady Tops get their third tourney title in the last four years, and make it back to the dance and, for the love of god, get a good matchup and win.

Regardless, here’s your pre-tournament notebook.

Since 2008/09, WKU hasn’t won a tournament game on two occasions: 2014, when they were the #2 seed in the Sun Belt and earned a double-bye, falling to ULL by one point, and last year, when they lost by four to UTSA in the 8/9 game.

In that same time span, the Tops have earned first round byes on three instances outside of this year (and they “technically” earned a bye in the 2016 tournament, but there was only one play-in game last year, so I’m not counting that). In those previous three tourneys that saw a WKU bye, they’re 2–1, with the lone loss coming in the aforementioned ULL game.

Final note on byes — this is the first bye for the Tops since the 2009/10 tournament, where they were the #1 seed in the Sun Belt and beat FIU, North Texas and South Al to win the whole damn thing.

The Tops’ #3 seeding is the highest they’ve been since joining C-USA.

For the first time since joining C-USA, the Lady Tops are the #2 seed, but they’ve never been seeded lower than #3 (2016 tournament).

Last year, the Lady Tops ran through North Texas, La Tech and Southern Miss. This year, the potential exists for the Lady Tops to face either La Tech or North Texas in the semi-finals. The only way to face Southern Miss again is in a title game rematch.

The Tops had their walk-through yesterday

In post-practice comments made to the on-the-ground press corps, Dwight Coleby talked about how it took a little bit to get used to shooting in such a big gym (which, as soon as I saw photos from the arena, was my first thought — we’re gonna see a lot of low scoring affairs), so hopefully their walk through was enough to get them used to the depth perception and such.

Chad Bishop asked all of Coleby, Marek Nelson and Rick Stansbury about if they’re, for lack of a better term, expecting to face UAB on Sunday, and while Marek and Dwight gave stock answers, Stansbury said that, if they had to practice with total preparation on one opponent tomorrow, it would be UAB. Not sure the last time I heard that kind of bluntness before.

Stans did say that, if FAU does upset the Blazers, they’ll turn on a dime to prep for the Owls, but after what happened this past weekend, you can’t really blame the Tops for having their preparations set for the favored team.

Another thing I found interesting was Stans said they weren’t going to be in the gym to watch FAU/UAB, for the most part, because it was such a late game.

Jake Ohmer is sporting a new, albeit somewhat familiar, look.

Stans was joking post-practice that he and Taveion are roommates, and that the mask fit Ohmer a little better than Taveion.

Finally, a look at your brackets.

Men’s:

And women’s:

May the odds be ever in your favorite team’s favor, as long as your favorite team is the Hilltoppers.

The tourney begins at 11 a.m. with all four women’s games being played first then the men begin at 6.