Coach Rick Stansbury has his roster full and ready to go.

Friday, the Hilltoppers learned the NCAA had cleared freshman guard Josh Anderson. One day later, WKU scored a 112-87 blowout win at Marshall.

Then Wednesday, the Toppers learned they’ll have a full deck of players Thursday night at Old Dominion.

The NCAA on Wednesday immediately cleared redshirt sophomore forward Moustapha Diagne. The 6-foot-9 big man missed WKU’s first 16 games this season while the NCAA investigated his amateur status.

Diagne traveled Wednesday to Norfolk, Va., and met his teammates before the Hilltoppers (11-5 overall, 3-0 Conference USA) face the Monarchs (12-3, 3-0) on Thursday in a first-place battle. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. CDT from the Ted Constant Center, with the game broadcast on BeIN Sports.

Diagne is a Rufisque, Senegal, native who signed with Syracuse out of Pope John XXIII High School in Sparta, N.J. The No. 58 player in his class, per ESPN, he didn’t qualify at Syracuse and instead enrolled at Northwest Florida State College, a junior college.

Diagne played one season at NFSC, averaging 10.2 points and 7.3 rebounds while starting 31 of 33 games in the 2015-16 season. He shot 48.7 percent from the field and 74.8 percent from the foul stripe.

Diagne declared after that season for the NBA Draft before eventually removing his name from that process. But by simply entering the draft, his junior college eligibility was exhausted.

Diagne enrolled at WKU and attended classes for the 2016-17 school year. He wasn’t part of the basketball program and didn’t receive an athletic scholarship.

“I cannot wait,” Diagne said in a June Daily News story after sitting out the 2016-17 year. “It’s really hard. It’s like they take something away from you.”

Diagne said in that June story that Hennssy Auriantal, who said he is Diagne’s legal guardian, arranged tuition payment for the forward during his year at WKU away from basketball.

Diagne was told before the Hilltoppers played their first game on an August trip to Costa Rica that he’d be unable to play. The NCAA was investigating his status as an amateur.

Multiple sources told the Daily News in December that the sports’ governing body was looking into his relationship with Auriantal, and the arrangement of tuition payments.

Diagne was unable to play in any of WKU’s first 16 games, or any preseason contests, but practiced with the team each day. Finally on Wednesday, he was declared good to go by the NCAA.

Diagne’s clearance bolsters a Tops frontcourt that features just two true post players in Dwight Coleby and Justin Johnson. His addition gives WKU 10 players available on its active roster, nine that are on scholarship.

“It would be great having another body out there,” the graduate senior Coleby said Monday of a possible Diagne clearance. “He’s really long, can rebound, can block shots, can score inside and he brings a lot of things to the team like leadership and talking.

“I think it would be great for us.”

Game preview

WKU faced Marshall’s frenetic, 3-point-firing attack Saturday and had no problem, scoring its most points since going for 113 in a 1994 win against Belmont.

The Hilltoppers will face a far different style of basketball Thursday in Norfolk. Old Dominion ranks No. 337 of 351 Division I teams in adjusted tempo, per KenPom.com, averaging 65.4 possessions per game.

WKU by contrast ranks No. 118 in tempo, averaging 70.6 possessions.

The Monarchs have been effective with that slow-down style during coach Jeff Jones’ tenure. This ODU team is strong defensively, ranking No. 43 in adjusted points per 100 possessions (96.1).

With fewer possessions, every trip down the floor is magnified, guard Lamonte Bearden said.

“I think we’ve got to execute, really,” the redshirt junior Bearden said. “They’re playing slow, so they’re trying to execute their stuff. We’ve got to be sharp and crisp and make sure we’re doing everything right.”

Guard B.J. Stith leads Old Dominion in scoring, averaging 15 points per game. The star is guard Ahmad Caver, who’s tallied 14.5 ppg and has a team-best 95 assists.

Forward Trey Porter (12.7 ppg) and guard Randy Haynes (11.4 ppg) are also double-digit scorers for the Monarchs.

“I think we’ve played teams that grind it out,” Coleby said. “ODU is a team that likes to grind the game out, so we’ll just stick to our game plan, whatever coach tells us to do.”

Notes

WKU has made at least one 3-pointer in 954 consecutive games, dating back to March 15, 1987. The Hilltoppers’ streak is the sixth-longest in the nation behind Kentucky, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Duke and Arkansas. … The senior Johnson (1,335 points) ranks No. 19 on WKU’s all-time scoring list. Next on the list is No. 18 Craig McCormick (1,354). … WKU has trailed for just 26 combined seconds in its three opening Conference USA wins. … The Hilltoppers’ current scoring average of 79.6 ppg would be the program’s highest since 1994-95.… In his last 13 games, guard Darius Thompson has 73 combined assists and just 19 turnovers. He has at least four assists in 14 of 16 games this season and ranks second in C-USA in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.8-to-1.