WKU Basketball: WKU Reigns Over the Monarchs, Finishes Old Dominion, 77-60

Western Kentucky Men's Basketball snapped a five game losing streak in style, sweeping quality opponents on the road by an average of 18 to end the week.

So much for Old Dominion having its way with Western Kentucky.

Since joining C-USA, Western Kentucky has a losing record at Old Dominion, and it looked like it may have been headed that direction, with the Monarchs taking as much as a seven point lead at 20-13 early in the first half. With WKU’s recent results, nothing can be trusted from the Tops, and the beginning felt like WKU was going to get dominated by a lesser opponent once again. WKU was sitting at a .500 overall record heading into Saturday’s action, but the bigger story was WKU having just snapped its five game conference losing streak Thursday at Charlotte by 19. That and the fact Old Dominion just hasn’t been the dominant program it’s been since joining Conference USA in 2014 this season.

But WKU’s elite and efficient offense was not to be stifled, finishing the half outscoring Old Dominion 20-6 and heading into halftime up 33-26, mainly fueled by Luke Frampton’s four threes, all in a row, not one of which hit rim. Nothing but net. It was an incredible display.

WKU would allow Old Dominion to climb within five on the first bucket 17 seconds into the second half, but WKU would take complete control, and once they got up double digits, they would never hold a lead of less than ten. Western would lead as much as 20, finishing with a final margin of 17, 77-60.

Western Kentucky finishes an impressive weekend, beating two teams ahead of them in the Conference USA East standings while also notching its first true road wins of the season. WKU had won ten other games at home or on a neutral court. So the monkey is off of the Tops’ back, and the conference standings look much more manageable.

WKU spread out the minutes much more evenly this game, with no one playing more than 35 minutes. And WKU’s bench did see a little bit of action, with Sherman Brashear and Isaiah Cozart both seeing six minutes of action and a couple of the bench riders coming in with a few seconds to play.

Production wise, WKU got excellent production from all who played significant minutes. Heck, Sherman Brashear even got in on the scoring late with a three. Those were his first points since scoring a bucket against Florida Atlantic. It was his first made three in over a month. All of WKU’s starters scored at least nine, and Josh Anderson scored seven.

Luke Frampton did all of his damage in the first 21 minutes of the game. Eight seconds after making a nice jump shot, Luke went down with an apparent knee injury. After the game, Rick described the situation as “not feeling good” about Luke’s knee. He would go on to say Luke felt a pop and that they would get an x-ray or whatever they needed to do, but he really didn’t having a good feeling about the situation.

How severe? How serious? We do not know, but pure speculation and the tone of how he (Coach Stansbury) was speaking was that Luke, barring a miracle, probably will be out for weeks, if not the rest of the season. That is absolute speculation and no one will know until scans are done, but Coach himself doesn’t seem too optimistic. If so, that would be a horrible way to possibly end his basketball career. Hopefully that’s not a reality for Luke Frampton.

WKU played some extraordinarily efficient basketball on the night, only turning the ball over six times while assisting on 17 of 28 baskets. WKU shot 51% from the field, 43% from three, and 75% from the line. Old Dominion actually had everyone in their starting lineup score at least seven, but no one else came off of the bench to contribute a single point. It was all on the starters, and much like WKU deals with consistently, trying to get five or six players to produce enough points to win when the opponent plays well is virtually impossible.

WKU had an answer for virtually everything ODU threw at them. Western played several different kinds of zone and also used some pressure defense, which really confused the Monarchs. The Tops made big play after big play, and ultimately WKU controlled most of the game simply by making tough shots, many of which were by ball reversal or just simple one-on-one basketball.

Now that WKU has won the two presumably most difficult games in this next stretch of five games, Western is now sitting with (according to ESPN’s BPI) around a 60% chance to sweep the next three games at home vs. FAU (80%), at UTSA (86%), and at USM (87%). Of course, those numbers mean nothing, but without question, a home win in the name of revenge and a win against two teams with a combined two wins in C-USA seems fairly likely. With FAU playing Tuesday in a makeup game because of COVID, FAU is even more likely to struggle on the road in a difficult environment inside Diddle Arena on short rest against a team that has woken from its midseason slumber.

If WKU was to win all of its games through Valentine’s Day, WKU would sit at 7-6 in conference, would almost certainly be at least two games ahead of the dreaded sixth seed in C-USA, and with five likely “L’s” for various East opponents between now and WKU’s road visit to USM on Valentine’s Day, the Hilltoppers likely would sit at least a spot or two higher in the standings. At that point, WKU gets everyone in the East but FAU and FIU one more time, finishing up with Marshall twice before heading to Frisco.

This was certainly a huge piece to getting back on track, and it’s a huge statement to the rest of the conference: WKU is not lying down, and the Tops are not just going to roll over and allow someone else to just take the East Division. They’re going to have to earn it, and with a little bit of help and some luck, the East seeding will run through Bowling Green in some way.

Tops get a red hot FAU in Diddle Arena Thursday night. Hopefully fans can set aside their trepidation and differences with Coach Stansbury and whatever and whoever else and get fully behind this team. The Tops could use some help going forward.

Final stats from Norfolk: