WKU Hilltoppers Fall to #15 West Virginia, 70–64 in Crossover Classic

In just their third straight game in a 72 hour period, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers were on a serious heist. After crashing the party…

In just their third straight game in a 72-hour period, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers were on a serious heist. After crashing the party by upsetting a strong Memphis Tigers team, Bob Huggins & the 15th-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers had proved to be their biggest test.

This was the second time in three years that both teams had met, with Western winning their last matchup 63–57 in 2018, but it was the ‘Neers who proved victorious this go around, 70–64, inn Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the championship round of the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic.

The Tops entered the day as heavy underdogs but came out of the gate well, as the game started with a sequence that left WKU trailing early by just one point, 12–11.

WKU scored 18 of its first 24 points in the paint, frustrating the Mountaineers' defensive attack and allowing WKU take a 25–24 with 5:59 to go in the opening half.

While the Tops played well throughout the opening half, they did so without Charles Bassey, who sat for nearly 16 minutes due to early foul trouble, but Rick Stansbury’s rotations kept things in stride during the first half.

After 20 minutes of play, the Tops lead the Mountaineers, 36–33.

WKU came out of the gate hot and saw their lead increase to 45–53 with 16:26 left in the game.

Going back and forth for most of the second half, WVU was able to climb their way back into the game and, eventually, tied the game at 52–52 with 8:22 left.

West Virginia scored a three-pointer to take back the control of the game, leading through the WKU timeout.

The Mountaineers expanded their biggest lead of the game around the five-minute mark, 59–52, Western slowly crept back up but was quickly brought back down trailing 9 points behind West Virginia. In the closing minutes, The Mountaineers created space to get the win by the final score of 70–64.

This was a game not to feel down about, even with it being the third consecutive game in a short number of days. The rest of the country is now being put on notice about this season's team. Also, with Louisville coming around the corner on December 3rd, this was a successful trip as they built their resume off of the Northern Iowa & Memphis wins.

Here are the final stats from today’s loss in Sioux Falls: