WKU Basketball: Tops Drop First C-USA Road Game at UTSA, 74–63
Western Kentucky lost their first conference road game in an abysmal performance in San Antonio. The Tops only shot 36% for the whole game…
Western Kentucky lost their first conference road game in an abysmal performance in San Antonio. The Tops only shot 36% for the whole game and shot 2 of 20 from downtown. Hollingsworth was the only one with any rhythm offensively and finished with 21 points while Johnson finished with 13 points despite not scoring in the first half.
The first half was about as bad as you could get for WKU. They came out extremely sluggish and only shot 22% as a team. The only thing that kept them in the game at the half was being able to draw fouls. UTSA had already committed 10 team fouls by the eleven minute mark of the first but WKU only shot 11–20 from the free throw line. They were able to keep the game within 12 points at the half but never were able to recover from the horrible start.
The Tops tried to get back into the game and made some very small runs to get within nine at one point but could never take the lead at any point. UTSA made the shots they needed to despite only shooting 39% as a team and 8 of 23 from deep. Jhivvan Johnson led the Roadrunners in scoring with 22 points and made 4 threes to help them seal the win against the Tops in one of WKU’s ugliest games this season.
This loss doesn’t knock WKU too far down in conference standings but it still stings. Their overall record is now 16–7 with an 8–2 record in the C-USA currently giving them second place. One thing this loss does is officially destroy their chances at potentially getting an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament. Bracketologist Joe Lunardi has had WKU as a bubble team and most recently as a first four out team but this loss will take them out of any chance of that happening. If they want to be in the NCAA Tournament, it’s going to have to be as C-USA Tournament champions or bust.
February has historically been a month that has hurt the Tops in conference play. The 2014–2015 team was 8–1 in the conference at the end of January and they wound up losing four straight in February which knocked them down the conference standings. That team finished with 20 wins but several WKU fans, including myself, expected so much more potential from that squad than what actually happened.
I hope that doesn’t happen to this year’s team because I believe they have a lot more talent than that team did. It’s mostly young talent but they’ve shown what they’re capable of this season. We’ll see what this team is made of the next two months.
Final stats:
