Dwight Coleby will be counted on this season more than he ever has.

The forward’s career high in playing time came as a sophomore at Mississippi, where he averaged 16.5 minutes per contest. He played 10 minutes per game as a freshman in 2013-14 with the Rebels, and 5.6 per game last year as a redshirt junior at Kansas.

Now it’s Coleby’s time to earn some time. Outside circumstances, including center Mitchell Robinson’s second and ultimately final departure last month from WKU, have left the Hilltoppers shorthanded in the frontcourt.

The graduate senior Coleby is one of just three true post players on Western Kentucky’s 2017-18 roster, alongside senior Justin Johnson and redshirt sophomore Moustapha Diagne. Even then, there are still questions.

Diagne is eligible to practice with WKU, which started its preseason practice period Tuesday, but the NCAA hasn’t yet cleared him to play in games. No timetable has been given to the school as to when the NCAA will rule on Diagne’s amateur status.

That means Coleby and Johnson are currently the only two Topper big men cleared to participate in actual games. WKU is set to host exhibitions Nov. 1 and Nov. 7 before opening the regular season Nov. 10 at home against Missouri State.

“We’ve done a lot of conditioning so we should be fine,” Coleby said. “Playing a lot of minutes, we just have to stay smart, not get in foul trouble and not put pressure on our team.”

Coleby, 6-foot-9 and 245 pounds, was brought in this summer by coach Rick Stansbury as a graduate transfer to add both leadership and frontcourt depth.

Coleby’s career highs in points and rebounds came in 2014-15, his last year at Ole Miss. He averaged 5.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per contest for a Rebels team that played in the NCAA Tournament.

Coleby tallied a combined seven points and 11 rebounds in an NCAA win against BYU and an ensuing loss to Xavier.

Coleby transferred the following offseason to Kansas and sat out an NCAA-mandated transfer season. The new Jayhawk injured his knee that season, putting him behind schedule for the following year.

Coleby’s health improved as the 2016-17 season went on, but he still finished with low per-game averages of just 1.7 points and 1.8 rebounds.

Back to health and seeking a team where he’d play a bigger role, Coleby elected to transfer for his final season of college basketball.

“(Stansbury) pretty much told me that he wanted me to be a leader on this team,” Coleby said. “He wanted me to expand my game and shoot some more, because he thinks I’m a good shooter. I’ve just been working on that, trying to develop my game more for the next level.”

The departure of Robinson and uncertainty around Diagne’s status mean Coleby and Johnson will be asked to play especially important roles this season.

Johnson is used to shouldering a heavy load for the Hilltoppers. He was third for Stansbury’s team last season in minutes per game (31.4) and led the squad in both scoring (14.5 points per game) and rebounding (9.4 per game).

Playing this many minutes will be a new college experience for Coleby. He couldn’t stay on the court during the team’s preseason trip to Costa Rica, spraining a heel early in WKU’s first of three games it played in the Central American nation.

Maintaining health this season is Coleby’s main goal, he said. If he can avoid injuries and stay on the floor, Johnson said he thinks the transfer big man can become a key presence for the Tops.

“He’s a big body in there and a really good rebounder … ,” the senior Johnson said. “He’s got really good hands around the rim, shoots it well in the mid-range game.

“On the defensive end he protects the rim, and that’s something that’s going to be really big for us. His conditioning is going to be really big for us, too, because he’s going to have to play a lot of minutes. I’m really looking forward to having another big man beside me. I think he’s going to do a really good job.”{&end}