WKU Basketball: Toppers Welcome EKU To Diddle

After thoroughly impressing both WKU fans and college basketball fans alike and taking fifth place in the Battle 4 Atlantis, the Tops are…

After thoroughly impressing both WKU fans and college basketball fans alike and taking fifth place in the Battle 4 Atlantis, the Tops are back in BG for a brief two-game home stretch before hitting the road once again. First up on the homestand, the Colonels of Eastern Kentucky.

Game Info

Time: 7 p.m. CT
Location: E.A. Diddle Arena | Bowling Green, Ky.
TV: Stadium Live on Facebook (Jason Knapp, Doug Gottlieb)
Radio: The Hilltopper IMG Sports Network

This is yet another barometer game for the Tops to show just how much WKU has improved from last year to this year. A season ago, the Tops fell to EKU (you might want to not read the next line if you don’t recall) 78–56 in Richmond.

In that loss, the Tops logged just five offensive rebounds, shot 38% from the floor and allowed four Colonels to score in double figures.

Now I don’t know a ton, but I have a feeling this WKU team might play a tad better.

For EKU, they enter tonight with a 3–3 record, and a CUSA win under their belt, having defeated Rice for their season opener, 73–72. While the Colonels aren’t quite a one-man show, their man guy is junior Nick Mayo, who’s averaging 19.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game.

Two other Colonels are averaging double figures for EKU: Dedric Boyd (16.2) and DeAndre Dishman (12.3).

I’m not going into this game thinking WKU will blow EKU out of the water — the Tops, while good and steadily improving, aren’t quite there yet. But, this will be another good win to put under them as this team continues to gel.

One thing I’ll be watching for is the performance of Jake Ohmer: Ohmer has been a key figure for the Tops (which, lets be real, you need everyone to be a key figure when you have eight men at your disposal), but he logged double figures in points once in Atlantis — against Purdue — but did combine to shoot 61.1% (11 of 18 from the floor) for the tournament. Maybe I’m hoping for too much from a true freshman who wasn’t even going to be playing true D1 hoops just a few months ago, but I’d love to see him turn into a guy you can pencil in 12–15 points a game from.

His buzzer beater against SMU was the first of, what feels like will be, many in a long line of awesome moments, but I’d like to see him start putting up that 12–15 points a night sooner rather than later.

I’m also very greedy.