WKU Basketball: Revisiting The Towel Rack’s Bold Predictions For the Season
This is something I meant to do, I don’t know, three weeks ago, but my word did time get away but you know what, we’re doing it now and…
This is something I meant to do, I don’t know, three weeks ago, but my word did time get away but you know what, we’re doing it now and that’s all that matters.
Much like we did for the football season, we’re going to take a look back at what The Towel Rack’s writing staff said at the outset of the year about what they thought might happen on the hardwood, and see how that stacked up with the real world. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (okay, I’ll cry because my prediction was bad), and it’ll be a good time.
Fletcher | Jake Ohmer will play his way onto an All-Conference USA team
Looking back on it, I see the mistake I made. I was too broad. This still could be in play down the line, but wasn’t the case this year. The year didn’t start off too bad for him — he averaged 24.3 minutes (remember, that was pre-Josh Anderson and Moustapha Diagne eligibility, so all you need to do to see the floor was have a pulse) and averaged 10.4 points in that time, shooting 41.3% from three (including a game winner against SMU in the Bahamas).
But, after dropping 12 points in back-to-back games against Ohio and Wisconsin, Ohmer saw a rough close to the season, averaging 14.7 minutes a night (which, honestly, is more than I remembered him playing) and averaging just 4.2 points. If not for a 12 point outburst in that Marshall blowout victory, I can’t imagine how low that total would be.
He also saw his three-point shooting plummet to 25% to end the year, making no more than two threes in every game in that stretch except for a 3-for-5 night against Rice.
But, there’s a lot of good from his year to build on, and if he can shoot his way onto the floor next year regularly, I don’t see any reason this can’t come to fruition some day.
Call me stubborn, but I refuse to take this L.
Ross Shircliffe | Rick Stansbury will add another player before the second semester starts
This seemed like one of the most sure-predictions before the year started, and it actually didn’t happen. The Tops rolled with eight guys Anderson and Diagne were eligible, and then went ten deep at that point.
Who’da thought the Tops would have seen such success with eight men.
Jared Rosdeutscher | WKU will be led in scoring by a freshman
Close, but not cigar for Jared on this one. It wasn’t a bad guess, but we didn’t account for two things: Justin Johnson turning in his best season of his career and Darius Thompson being as efficient as he was.
He wasn’t too far off, though. Taveion Hollingsworth finished the year third on the team, scoring 13.3 each night, which is just about 2.5 off of JJ’s 15.7 points and .3 off of Darius’ 13.6 mark.
Hunter Peay | WKU will return to the NCAA Tournament
Need a reminder of how close the Tops were to this coming true?
I don’t like to hurt you, but it’s important to remember.
While not making the tournament was a bit of a bummer, making it to MSG as part of the NIT Final Four ain’t a bad consolation prize.
Matt McCay | Tops will finish the year among the nation’s best scoring offenses
So…kind of?
When you take into account there are over 300 D1 programs, yes, WKU is by default a top scoring offense, finishing the year with the 63rd best scoring offense at 78.4 points per game.
They also were the second-best scoring offense in Conference USA, behind only Marshall, who was 10th in the nation after turning in 83.8 points.
Dare I say Matt was the closest of all of us? Congrats, buddy.