WKU Basketball: Tops Hold Off Thundering Herd in Front of Sold Out Diddle, 85–74
The newest basketball edition of the Moonshine Throwdown didn’t disappoint as Western Kentucky was able to win in front of a sold out…
The newest basketball edition of the Moonshine Throwdown didn’t disappoint as Western Kentucky was able to win in front of a sold out Diddle Arena crowd of 7,362. Darius Thompson led WKU with 20 points on 9 of 15 shooting while CJ Burks led Marshall with 29 points.
One of the most interesting things from this game was the fact that freshman guard Jake Ohmer made his first career start due to Lamonte Bearden being limited to the sickness that has been going around the locker room. Ohmer had been in a scoring slump for several games but tonight he was able to find more of a rhythm and finished with 12 points (2 of 3 from distance) and drew several fouls when driving to the basket.
Fouls were key for both teams tonight and both teams had several players get in foul trouble. Coleby and Diagne for WKU had four fouls and Marshall’s Penava and George both fouled out.
WKU’s offense looked a lot better than it did against MTSU but the defense seemed to struggle at times. The Tops would get up by about eight or ten points but as soon as they would start to pull away Marshall would come marching back and hit a few threes (some were left wide open) to keep it close.
Marshall took the lead for the first time in the second half with about 12:00 left and got up by as much as five but WKU was able to still keep the game manageable as it got late.
The Tops went on a run to end the game thanks to the heroism of Tavieon Hollingsworth and Justin Johnson. Hollingsworth hit a huge three to give WKU the lead with about a minute left and his energy made Diddle Arena go absolutely bonkers. Johnson was able to get a massive slam with less than a minute and the Tops held on to win 85–84.
WKU advances to 7–1 in the conference and 15–6 overall and Marshall is now 5–3 in the conference and 14–7 overall. WKU will now travel to UTEP for their next game on Thursday.
Final stats:
What did you think of tonight’s game? How will WKU do on the road? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook, Twitter, or forum!