WKU Basketball: Tops To Tango With Southern Miss

After narrowly escaping the conference opener with a victory over Louisiana Tech, WKU welcomes Southern Miss into Diddle Arena as WKU looks…

After narrowly escaping the conference opener with a victory over Louisiana Tech, WKU welcomes Southern Miss into Diddle Arena as WKU looks to move to 2–0 in the conference season.

Game Info

Time: 2p.m. CT
Location: Diddle Arena | Bowling Green, Ky.
TV: Fox College Sports
Radio: The Hilltopper IMG Sports Network

So, long story short on Southern Miss is they’re…not great. Sure, they’re .500 coming into this afternoon, but they have losses against South Dakota and Northern Colorado on their resume. They also enter today on a three-game losing streak, with the most recent loss coming at the hands of the Thundering Herd in an 85–66 dismantling.

Southern Miss actually shot better than Marshall did from the floor — 49.2% compared to 46.3% — but only shot 25% from three and lost the rebounding margin 47–26.

The Golden Eagles are paced by a trio of scorers — Cortez Edwards (17.1), Tyree Griffin (14.5) and Dominic Magee (10.4) — but don’t have a player with more than 5.9 rebounds per game (Edwards).

I don’t take a ton of stock in ESPN’s matchup predictor, but they’re giving WKU a 94.6% chance in this one, and if the Tops can start as fast as they did on Thursday, I don’t see how Southern Miss can combat that large a deficit.

A sub-plot of today’s game will be the health of Jake Ohmer, who left Thursday’s game after suffering a sprained ankle late against the Bulldogs. If he’s able to play, how much of a factor will he be (he wasn’t much of one against La Tech, but he really didn’t need to be early on). If he can’t go, how long will it be until the Tops begin to look like they’re wearing thin with depth.

Regardless, by the end of the day, the Tops should be 2–0 before embarking on a tough road trip to Marshall and ODU.