WKU Basketball: Western Finds a Way to Win in CUSA's Toughest Gym, Topples La Tech, 81-76

An upset that reshuffles Conference USA once again, WKU's win at La Tech was Western's win at La Tech was its highest ranked opponent in 2.5 years.

Feb 08, 2024

Western Kentucky Basketball has had a bit of an up and down year, although the overall record doesn’t necessarily show so. Well, WKU is climbing at the moment, overcoming (for whatever reason) the toughest environment in Conference USA. Louisiana Tech has won nearly 90 percent of its games in its home gym, Thomas Assembly Center, since 2012. Western had not won at La Tech since the 1990s themselves.

To come in against the best, most talented Bulldog team in recent memory with a team that has mysteriously wilted on the road and get a come-from-behind victory against CUSA’s top team must put some wind in the sails for the Tops.

La Tech (16-7, 6-2 CUSA) was riding a six game win streak, only losing to (tied for first place) Sam Houston thus far in conference play. WKU (16-7, 5-4 CUSA) was 4-4 and had not won a road game yet in conference. La Tech was favored by about ten points, ESPN liked La Tech to the tune of over 90% according to their BPI, and WKU (still) is without starting guard Khristian Lander. It did not look great, yet there was still a sliver of hope. WKU has played some amazing basketball at times this season, but it hasn’t shown up in clutch time on the road in 2024.

In this one, WKU looked like the underdog for much of the first half, getting down as much as 12 at 13:43 left in the first half. It was still a double digit deficit at 24-13 with 9:59 remaining. From there, WKU would wittle down the La Tech lead and take over before halftime, going in up 40-37 (outscoring La Tech 27-13 in the final 9:59).

WKU would take a ten point lead at 53-43 with 15:21 remaining, but La Tech would fight back and tie or take a few one possession leads from 12:12 to 6:16 on the clock. From that point forward, WKU was able to seize back control and survive down the stretch, although the Tops did miss a few key free throws that gave the Bulldogs some hope. Fortunately, La Tech had some blunders down the stretch, missing a key free throw that could have put pressure on WKU late and getting called for a moving screen and fouling out potential CUSA Player-of-the-Year Daniel Batcho in the final seconds.

Nonetheless, WKU weathered the storm and pulled off its most impressive victory since the Tops beat a really good UAB team under Rick Stansbury several seasons ago. WKU’s only Quad 2 game all season resulted in a “W”. Western was able to get to the 80 point mark, a huge indicator of WKU’s success in 2023-24, handling the Bulldogs 81-76.

What Went Right

Despite getting down, WKU weathered the storm and showed some real guts on the road, made no excuses, and found a way against a nationally competitive (NET 75) opponent.
In its first true game against “real” competition, WKU flourished. WKU had not played a Quad 2 game (or higher) this season, and the Tops passed their one test thus far.
- Speaking of NET rankings, WKU climbed from 153 to 145 with this one victory. Wins like this will help WKU in the event that they do eventually make the NCAA Tournament. Right now, if Western entered the NCAA Tournament with its current NET, the Tops may be lucky to not get a 16 seed. Winning some road games and making a run in CUSA can only help this effort.
Outrebounding La Tech 41-33: This would be your biggest coup of the game. La Tech plays a much slower pace and still rebounds about as good as WKU. Western stifled La Tech on the boards, winning this battle easily. A true sign of a team effort, no Topper grabbed more than eight boards and six guys had at least four rebounds.
Holding Daniel Batcho and Isaiah Crawford 11 Points under their average really crippled the Bulldogs’ chances. The two combined for 6-of-19 shooting, 1-for-6 from three, 6-of-10 FT, 14 reb (still below their combined average), both fouled out, had a negative assist-to-turnover, and as was mentioned, only scored 19 points compared to their normal 30 combined. Western was able to hold them to a below average game, something we didn’t even ask for in our pregame article! We would’ve been fine with them getting their average or a little less. This was excellent work by the Tops.
Winning a conference road game. These are tough to come by. According to Steve Lutz’s formula to be in a good spot in CUSA, the Tops need to win at home (4-1 at home) and win half on the road (1-3). WKU needs to get a couple more on the road and the Tops will be right there in the upper echalon at season’s end.
WKU can win in March: If WKU can go into a place with a 10% chance to win, spot the other team double digits, and fairly routinely put away the conference’s best and matchup with their best players admirably, they can certainly go a couple hours away from home on a neutral court and win it all in Huntsville. No matter what else happens this year, WKU has finally shown it can do it against the best in the conference away from Diddle Arena.

What Went Wrong

Slow Start: WKU was down a significant margin in the first half before turning on the jets. Part that is just La Tech is good and it took a little bit to figure out how to matchup. Fine. Credit the coaching staff. However, the other part of this is WKU not always playing 40 minutes of basketball. Western looked like they were going to get ran out of the gym early. Then they turned it on and won with overall ease in the second half. But the inconsistency has to not be so extreme going forward.
Dontaie Allen was absolutely invisible vs La Tech. I think it’s clear Dontaie struggles with physical, athletic length. This is why he disappears against Sam Houston, La Tech, and UTEP, but flourishes against a Liberty and FIU. As a borderline starter and certainly key role player, it’s up to Dontaie to find a way to be a little more consistent. This game, he only took one shot, had one rebound, fouled twice, and had a turnover in 28 minutes.
- Bigger picture, this is the second straight game a starter has scored zero points. WKU has had starters in just about every game that just don’t contribute. If WKU wants to be a champion, everybody has to play their role. The role of a starter is to produce something. Score five instead of ten. Get some boards. Take care of the ball. But a starter who doesn’t score, rebound or distribute is a liability. WKU has had some liabilities in just about every game this season.
Giving up 25 points to one guy on the bench. Jordan Crawford had 25 on 15 shots. A guy who had only scored in double figures four times and only scored six or more six times went for 25. He nearly won the game for his team. It’s one thing to allow somebody like that to go for 12 or 15. That’s going to happen in almost every game. But look at what happened to FIU when Dontaie Allen scored 30. They played amazing offensively and weren’t even close to winning. WKU was fortunate that La Tech’s main players didn’t play that well.
Turnover Margin was -4. Once again, WKU doesn’t either create enough pressure or take good enough care of the ball. Four more turnovers means some of that rebounding margin was lost because Western lost possessions by being a little careless in a game that wasn’t played at an extraordinarily high pace. Now this was better than having 20 turnovers or so, but for the style of the game, it would have been nice to see WKU closer to ten turnovers. Or alternatively, create some more issues for La Tech and minimize their chances to score on you.

Topper Tidbits

Tonight’s matchups will not affect WKU’s standing in the league immediately. Liberty and MTSU are below WKU, while Jacksonville State hosts Sam Houston. Jacksonville State could set itself up for a battle to even up with WKU if they could beat SHSU at home. SHSU could take a half game lead on everyone with a win at Jax State. If SHSU loses, it puts WKU within a game of the Bearkats, although the Kats do own the tiebreaker and WKU would need them to lose a few more games.
With 16 wins, WKU is well on pace to get to 20 wins for the first time since 2020-21. With conference tournament opportunities, Western could win one more game the rest of the season and still have hope of a 20 win season if it were to win the CUSA Tournament. Here’s to hoping WKU doesn’t rely on CUSA Tournament to eclipse 20 wins.
Important perspective: Our WKU bias reminds us of WKU’s injuries. However, 13 ppg scorer Tahlik Chavez was unavailable for La Tech Wednesday due to “personal reasons”. There’s no telling how Chavez would impact the matchup without breaking it down, but Western coaches, fans, and players should not get too arrogant given that an honorable mention all-conference caliber player was out for the Bulldogs.
Since scoring one point at New Mexico State, Don McHenry has scored no less than 17 in his last five games, shooting no less than 53 percent in any of those games.
Rodney Howard has established himself, scoring at least five points in every game but one all season and scoring in double digits his last five games. He has also been consistent on the glass of late, grabbing at least five rebounds in all but one game in CUSA play.
Freshmen Jack Edelen and Teagan Moore continue to see significant action. Both have played in the last five games, and Teagan has seen double digit minutes since his breakout performance at UTEP. Both are playing their role as freshman, and the fact that Jack Edelen is a freshman walk-on getting real minutes at 5’10” is just a testament to his maturity and fortitude. Both have shown maturity beyond their years thus far.
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Next Time Out

Depending on how things shake out with the SHSU and Jax State game today, WKU’s next game against Jacksonville State could be what separates the two teams in the standings at year’s end. If Jax State loses to SHSU and WKU could beat Jax State at home, it would be incredibly unlikely that JSU could overcome such a hole this late in the season.

Regardless, JSU poses a huge threat to WKU’s hopes at a late season surge. Kyky Tandy absolutely gave WKU fits in Diddle Arena. It took Western a long time to adjust to his explosiveness in that game.

Despite Jax State’s pedestrian record in and out of conference, you cannot underestimate the Ray Harper factor. This is not a paragraph in worship of the former Hilltopper head coach, who lucked into joining Conference USA by hanging on at a program that happened to move up to the FBS in football. Ray Harper knows what he’s doing. He may not be Coach K, but he is certainly the Conference USA Coach with the best resume, and it’s not even close. Ray has postseason experience, knows how to squeeze all the juice out of a questionable roster, and also just has plain old revenge on his mind and would probably love to observe the meltdown that would inevitably come from losing to Ray Harper.

Keep in mind, Western was down eight to JSU at the half in Diddle. Western needed one of its ridiculously explosive halves to overcome the team at hand.

With a win, WKU could easily climb into fourth, but has no other opportunity to move upward immediately. However, the Tops could easily pull within a game of first, and they could easily create more separation on fifth through ninth, who all sit currently below .500 in conference.

With a loss, WKU could end up within a game or two of last place. Once again, WKU just needs to keep winning. Everybody plays each other twice, so just stacking wins (especially on the road) in the middle of the season will go a long way in separating the top from the bottom.

That was an incredible, program/season stabilizing and confidence building win. However, it was still only one game, and it didn’t do anything but help create a buffer to the bottom of the league and make La Tech a little bit more possible to edge out by regular season’s end.

WKU must take the confidence piece of this win, keep that, and flush the rest. Western still has plenty to improve, and let’s face it: Khristian Lander may not make it back before season’s end if this concussion/migraine/whatever issue is not resolved. This is the roster WKU may take to conference tournament, so it’s time to come together and stay hungry. The Tops are plenty good enough to beat whoever, but they are plenty human to lose to whoever at any given time.

The team that wins CUSA will come together as a team, and it will eliminate or minimize most of its worst issues by season’s end. That team will get the glory in March.

For anyone who is not able to head to Jacksonville, Alabama, as we head into the weekend, tune into @thetowelrackwku on Twitter/X for build-up, live tweets, and reactions. While you’re at it, go ahead and check out the RedOut Podcast on Twitter/X and on YouTube. As always, we are your #1 source for unfiltered and honest WKU content!

The game will be on ESPN+ at 4 PM Central Time Saturday afternoon.