WKU Basketball: Tops Play Poorly But Still Find A Way To Keep Close in 66–62 Loss
It was a tale of two halves for WKU, who looked extremely sluggish, uninterested and all around not good in the first half but turned it on…
It was a tale of two halves for WKU, who looked extremely sluggish, uninterested and all around not good in the first half but turned it on when it mattered most in the second half, but ultimately, it wouldn’t be enough as the Tops fell to Middle Tennessee, 66–62, in suffering their first loss of the conference season.
The first half was…forgettable, especially for the Tops. They couldn’t get into a rhythm for the entire period and looked off in just about every way in the opening 20. Three balls weren’t falling — in fact, they were going so far off the mark, it was lucky if a ball hit the rim — and the Tops looked like they were sleepwalking through every facet of the game.
They took rebounds for granted, found themselves in double-teams at the top of the court every time the passed the timeline and just, overall, weren’t effective against the Raiders.
It also didn’t help the Raiders got hot at the end of the half, using a 10–1 run to take a lead, and Nick King caught fire, finishing the first half with a game high 12 points.
The Tops played better in the second half — most personified by shooting 52.6% from the floor, compared to just a 36.4% in the opening 20 minutes — but it wasn’t an instant turn of events as to when the Tops played better.
WKU was able to do just enough to hang around, and ultimately found themselves winthin a bucket multiple times inside the final two minutes.
The backbreaking sequence came with less than 30 seconds to play, when the Raiders nearly ran into a shot clock violation, but got a rebound on a missed shot, and ultimately a put-back dunk put them up for, all intents and purposes, the game winning bucket.
After the Taveion and-one play, it was a free-throw fest, that the Tops wound up falling just short of.
Some stray thoughts from the game:
This is a good loss. Not that losing, especially to MT, is ever good, but the Tops looked horrible for so long in the game, that it had no business being a four-point final score. The fact that MT couldn’t put the game away says something great about this team.
Darius wasn’t good, period. Someone on twitter said the radio broadcast said he was sick, but still, if he’s hindering the performance on the floor, he shouldn’t be on the floor.
Coleby was a man among boys tonight.
Can’t remember another game this year where the Tops were so obviously dominated by one player. Nick King was the Achilles heel tonight. Can’t wait to see him, and MT, again.