WKU Basketball: Tops Aim Season’s Longest Win Streak As They Face La Tech in Ruston
The Hilltoppers are riding a three-game winning streak and are looking to make it a season-high four straight wins today as the Tops take…
The Hilltoppers are riding a three-game winning streak and are looking to make it a season-high four straight wins today as the Tops take on Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
Game Info
Time: 4:00 p.m. CT
Location: Thomas Assembly Center | Ruston, Louisiana
TV: Stadium on Facebook
Radio: The Hilltopper IMG Sports Network
The Bulldogs enter today with a 14–7 overall record and an even 4–4 mark in Conference USA play. They’re fresh off an overtime victory against Marshall after dropping two straight contests to ODU and *checks notes* Charlotte? Okay. Charlotte.
Tech’s offensive vs. defensive averages may be a bit misleading — they’re scoring 75 points per game and allowing just 68.4, but those come against some…well say “lesser,” opponents (more on that in a little).
To amplify that point, since CUSA play has started, the Dogs have posted the 11th-best offense (65.6 points per game) but have the second-best defense (63.1). They’re still outscoring their opponents, but not by nearly what it surface-level stats will tell you.
The man the Tops will need to stop is DaQuan Bracey: He leads the Techsters in points per game (14), assists per game (4.2) and points produced (276).
Having said that Bracey is far from Tech’s only cog in the machine — three other Bulldogs are averaging double-figures offensively: Anthony Duruji (12.7), JaColby Pemberton (10.3) and Amorie Archibald (10.3).
Where the ‘Dogs really make their living is on the glass: La Tech ranks 34th in the entire country in total rebounds and get it done both on the offensive (41st-best) and defensive (69th-best, nice) sides of the floor.
Pemberton (5.6), Duruji (5.5) and Archibald (4.3) are all out done only by Oliver Powell (5.7 RPG). Mubarak Muhammed is also averaging 5.3 boards a night.
The rebounding battle will be the most interesting today — La Tech has allowed the most total rebounds in conference play while the Hilltoppers have allowed the fewest.
Charles Bassey is a must-produce every night for the Tops, but that rings especially true tonight, as he’ll have to fight for every board.
While the Tops don’t have anyone averaging 5.0 or more boards a game sans Bassey’s 9.8, they do have a trio of four-rebound averagers; Jared Savage (4.8), Taveion Hollingsworth (4.5) and Dalano Banton (4.0).
La Tech has yet to drop a home decision this season, but they haven’t been playing a necessarily strong group of home games: Sam Houston State, Harding (who I have never heard of), Tougaloo (who I have never heard of), Houston Baptist, Prairie View A&M, Mississippi Valley State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi composed Tech’s non-conference schedule.
I’m not necessarily sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Regardless, we should be in for a fun game. We usually don’t do this, but frankly that’s because we don’t have much to do it with, but during the game for a view of the other side, be sure you’re following the following people for Tech coverage and point of view:
Go Tech Pls Dont Die — Basically, the Tech version of us. Except a little goofier. Just a little.
BleedTechBlue — I actually don’t know how active these guys are during hoops games, but they’re run by a super nice and knowledgeable bunch of guys. Go check them out and give them some love.
Tanner Spearman — Tanner is La Tech’s writer for Underdog Dynasty and is very fun to interact with. In terms of non-WKU people, Tanner is one of our biggest supporters — at least, he interacts with us on Twitter a lot.