WKU Basketball: Season Opening Notebook

The Tops and Lady Tops held up their end of the doubleheader, winning in impressive fashion in both games.

Heading into this season, no one seems to know what to expect from either WKU basketball team.

Perhaps the more well-known situation is on the men’s side, with Steve Lutz replacing Rick Stansbury WKU’s head coach. Immediately, Coach Lutz came in and weeded out some less committed holdovers and brought in his people (coaches and players alike) methodically over the summer.

Greg Collins is likely known by most people on The Hill, but as the women’s coach with not as many natural observers, if we have some that haven’t been around the Lady Tops, he has been at the top or No. 2 position in the program for a long time. He has been at the head of the snake for long enough that expectations have to be pretty high given the length of his tenure and the immense college basketball tradition within the Lady Topper program.

As far as on the court, both teams pulled off victories in likable, impressive ways in their respective season openers Monday. It’s certainly fair to encourage one another not to get too carried away with just one game’s performance.

However, I think we learned a great deal from both of these programs heading into this season versus after seeing each of them for a full game.

Lady Tops win tight battle vs. Mercer

Western’s women’s basketball team took on Mercer, a team that has had some good years in recent memory. Mercer did not make the NCAA Tournament last season, but in four of the five previous years, they did, and the Bears actually sit with an 11th year coach that knows her program and knows how to win on a national level.

The Lady Tops fought valiantly, at times leading by as much as six. Mercer had a few leads, but generally WKU controlled the game, although neither team ever took full control. This was not terrible basketball, where both teams played awful with no effort. Both teams put out a pretty decent team that played hard and didn’t just throw the ball away without a clue of how to play together as a team.

Mercer is a difficult team to read, as well, but I do believe WKU had some serious bright spots that suggest at least some nice quality on this roster. The first thing that stood out was depth and size. The Lady Tops have, traditionally, been one of the smaller lineups in Conference USA. Rarely has their been multiple 6’2” girls that could play, or a 6’4” body that can honestly just take up space. This season, WKU has some serious ability to hang with some bigger teams instead of getting slobberknockered by clearly larger lineups.

The Tops did not shoot that well, nor did you see a turnover-free outing. I think it was a clearly solid effort all game long, and they were the slightly better team.

Finishing out the month, the Lady Tops have games

• at Southern Utah

• vs. Cornell

• at Vanderbilt

• at Miami (OH)

• vs. Bucknell

• vs. Kansas State

WKU’s non-conference remains brutal past that point, with games against Oregon State, Missouri State and Nevada, just to name a few.

With multiple Power Fives and quality mid-major programs, this will not be a guaranteed easy road, and the Tops better get ready to deal with the consequences of possibly not having the easiest road to the tune of not necessarily being favored to win in almost every one of its non-conference games.

WKU will be incredible fortunate to enter conference play with a .500 record. Be impressed if they walk into the new year above .500

WKU men impressive in blowout win, immediately gain respect from Diddle crowd

Steve Lutz may be a mystery to some, but I believe he is the kind of coach needed by WKU right now. After seeing his players play, I think every sign points to raising the floor of the season expectations for this team. Most people maybe expected this team to be decent, but the way in which WKU played intensely and looked skilled was impressive.

If you weren’t there Monday, maybe you don’t get it. But if you paid attention or you could see what was going on, even on TV, WKU’s intensity was incredible to watch. It was tangible.

Of course, the hindsight comments come in about how everybody knew it, that Stansbury never did this, that we “saw more post feeds in the first half than we saw the previous six years,” for example. However, WKU’s defense was very intense, they subbed often, and they played real Hilltopper Basketball: High paced, live action, and using the inside to open up the outside.

While you may scoff at getting so excited about defeating a Division II program, do keep in mind that Kentucky Wesleyan beat Louisville and was competitive with another quality program in St. Louis. For WKU to dominate them by 26, and do it going away, is just another trendsetting statement about how things are changing in the men’s side of Diddle Arena, and if it continues at this pace, no one needs to wait until 2025 before WKU accomplishes a decade old goal: Getting back to the top of the conference mountain.

WKU’s road to glory gets much tougher from here. Western goes to Wichita to take on Wichita State Thursday night in maybe WKU’s biggest non-conference test, even if some other quality mid-major programs are on the docket (games Buffalo, Austin Peay, Albilene Christian and Wright State highlight the pre-CUSA slate).

Unlike the women, who have a murderer’s row, WKU’s schedule looks inviting, but I’m not buying the “easy” argument when you consider the amount of the opponents that have had quality postseason runs recently that are lined up for WKU to play.

WKU could win every game individually on its schedule, but it could also lose several if the Tops do not play well.

Hilltopper Nation is abuzz with the debut of Steve Lutz, his newcomers, and the returning players from 2023. That was beyond expectation, and Steve Lutz turned a skeptical Diddle into a bunch of cautiously thrilled alumni and fans.

Conference USA, get ready, cause here come the Tops!