WKU Basketball: Tops Lose First Home Game of the Season to Buffalo, 77-67
Too many second chance points and threes from Buffalo gave the Bulls a big road win.
Western Kentucky fought all game without senior Josh Anderson and a beat up Jairus Hamilton but the Tops weren’t able to play well enough to get a win over the Bulls who were without their leading scorer, 77-67.
Dayvion McKnight shined and led the Tops with 18 points on 9-of-15 shooting while Jairus Hamilton, who is coming back after missing Saturday’s game against Eastern Kentucky with a back injury, had 15 points.
Cam Justice added 14 points on 1-of-7 shooting from deep while the team would only shoot 17% from behind the arc.
While WKU struggled making threes, Buffalo shot a lot better and shot almost 40%. The Bulls also had a ton of second chance points as well from where the Tops were unable to secure a rebound as they out rebounded WKU, 42-28.
In the first half, the Tops were in control early, driving to the basket well and doing almost whatever they want against the Bulls’ defense to take an early 20-12 lead.
Things fell apart from there, as the Bulls ripped an 18-5 run and took a 40-35 lead into halftime, our scoring the Tops 28-15 down the stretch.
In the second half, there was a lot of back and forth and, despite being down double digits late, the Tops made a run to get within six points with about five minutes left but after a missed travel call and made three from the Bulls, they would extend their lead and any hopes of a comeback would fall short.
Tonight you could tell that depth is a major concern with this team and with the status of Keith Williams or Zion Harmon being extremely uncertain, we can only hope and pray at least one of them could play before conference play begins in January.
WKU now sits at 5-4 in non-conference play and will prepare to play Ole Miss in State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Saturday.
Here are the final stats from the evening:
