By JEFF NATIONS / jeff.nations@bgdailynews.com

Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team ended a troublesome streak last season, reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade under first-year head coach Steve Lutz.

Starting a new streak at WKU falls to Lutz’s successor and former top assistant, Hank Plona, who was named to the top job after Lutz departed to take the head coaching job at Oklahoma State after leading the Hilltoppers to a 22-12 season that included the program’s first-ever Conference USA Tournament championship and first NCAA bid since 2013.

Plona is a first-time head coach at the NCAA Division I level, but he has plenty of experience as a successful head coach at Indian Hills (Iowa) Community College, where he won 86.5% of his games over eight seasons and led his team to a conference regular-season title every year and the NJCAA National Tournament seven times.

Unlike Lutz, who largely had to rebuild the roster in his first season, Plona inherits a strong nucleus of returning talent supplemented by even more players he’s had past experience coaching at Indian Hills. Add in the retention of assistant coaches Martin Cross and Tim MacAllister off last season’s staff and the continuity is surprisingly strong considering the change at the top.

“It’s kind of a unique year,” Plona said. “I’ve told the guys several times that I’m aware myself – we’re never going to have this many guys back again. I mean, we could be doing this 20 or 30 years and this’ll be the largest chunk of minutes, points, experience, players – anything – that we have returning. And it really is a testament to their togetherness.”

“ … I think that our experience and our togetherness is going to be a strength of the team. I think when you have an experienced and together team that has won together before and clearly has some talented players, you know you have a chance. So I think as we enter the season we certainly know what we’re capable of, and I don’t think anybody has any higher expectations for what we can become in March than we do within that locker room.”

The Tops, picked to finish second in the CUSA preseason poll with 85 points – just two behind preseason favorite Louisiana Tech – were one of five conference teams to receive at least one first-place vote (WKU got two).

Senior point guard Don McHenry, an All-CUSA First Team selection last season, and graduate senior forward Tyrone Marshall Jr. (All-CUSA Honorable Mention last year) are both preseason All-CUSA picks this year.

McHenry, who averaged a team-high 15.1 points last season in his first year at WKU after transferring in from Indian Hills, thinks the pieces are in place for the Tops to again challenge for the league championship.

“I trust coach Hank and what I’m expecting is to be just the best version not only of myself but as a team being the best version of ourselves – not just trying to outdo what we did last year, but being a better version of ourselves each day and giving our best effort and living with the results,” McHenry said. “But still, trying to be better than what we did last year at the same time.”

Getting another huge season out of McHenry would go a long way toward raising that bar this year.

“Probably since the first day that I stepped on the floor with Don, I’ve been trying to emphasize defense a little bit more than offense because he is exceptional with that basketball in his hands,” Plona said. “Sometimes when Don has the ball, I try not to get in the way. But when he doesn’t have the ball, I think he has to become a better player and that’s moving without the ball on offense, giving different teammates space to score, giving them the same pace that they give him to score.

“And then on defense, I mean, he had eight rebounds against Marquette last year in the tournament. If he can do that on that stage, I would think you could do it every single game. Those are the type of things Don and I talk about, for sure.”

Marshall, a 6-foot-7 do-it-all forward who led the team in steals (50) and blocked shots (36) while averaging 8.8 points and 4.5 rebounds a year ago, has the versatile skill-set to play anywhere on the floor. Plona said Marshall “has no real position,” but can play them all.

“I take it as a compliment,” Marshall said. “I feel like I should be able to play any spot on the floor. I should be able to guard anybody on the floor. If it’s a five, the one, the two, the three – I feel like I should be able to guard anybody. Or even on the offensive end, I feel like I can play the five if we spread the floor out. Like La Tech, you’ve got the big man over there who protects the paint real good. If I can go to five and we can space out that floor, he can’t sit in there. And I can shoot, too. I’ve been working on my shot. We’ve been working on certain spots where I can get my groove and go get me a bucket, or I can set one of my teammates up where his defender can’t help if I beat my defender and make an extra pass out.”

Beyond those two, the Tops get one more year from graduate guard Khristian Lander (9.0 points per game last year), plus return senior forward Babacar Faye (7.5 points, 5.6 rebounds), who had a 20-point, 8-rebound outing in the Tops’ 88-79 exhibition home loss to UAB on Monday. Senior guard Enoch Kalambay (6.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg) is another versatile player capable of moving into the frontcourt as needed, while sophomore guard Teagan Moore (6.2 ppg, 2.3 rpg) has been slowed by offseason hip surgery after a stellar freshman campaign. Plona said Moore, who did not play against UAB, is day-to-day with his recovery but is expected to get on the court soon.

Senior guard Jalen Jackson, who was limited to 10 games last season before an injury sidelined him, was the Tops’ best defender when he played with 14 steals along with 25 assists in his abbreviated season. Sophomore guard Jack Edelen, a walk-on last year who became an important role player, could also push for more playing time.

Supplementing that group are a trio of transfer portal additions – graduate senior guard Braxton Bayless, redshirt-senior forward/center Blaise Keita and senior forward/center Leeroy Odiahi. Bayless and Odiahi previously played for Plona at Indian Hills, while Keita – a transfer from Nebraska – is familiar to the WKU coach from his days as a junior-college star.

Freshman Julius Thedford also could be an impact player this season.

“Julius is a little ahead of schedule compared to where most freshmen are,” Plona said. “Julius is a little bit of an X-factor in the sense that when he’s really good, he’s right up there with anybody.”

The Tops will be without a group of injured players this season. Guard Terrion Murdix, who missed all last season recovering from a knee injury, had a second knee operation in April and is expected to redshirt. Forward Fallou Diagne, who missed most of last season, also had a second knee operation and is expected to redshirt. The same goes for incoming freshman Kade Unseld, the former Warren Central High School star who had a second knee operation in July – he is expected back sometime in the middle of the season, but is a potential redshirt.

Another former area star, Greenwood graduate Cade Stinnett, transferred to WKU from Centre College and is expected to take a redshirt season with two years of eligibility remaining after that.

Even with those missing pieces, Plona thinks his team has plenty of depth to contend.

“I think we’re in a good place,” Plona said. “At the same time, obviously we want to make sure and we’ve got to figure out exactly which combinations work together. We want to make sure that we continue to get better, keep getting in physical and mental shape to play the pace we were playing at the end of last year. That’s a year-long work in progress to have the comfort, both physically and mentally, to be able to play at that speed. And then no doubt, we want to just get better at tough situations. We want to make sure when that game’s tied with three minutes to go that we’re preparing to be successful and to be able to win a lot more of those games.”

Monday’s season opener against Wichita State at E.A. Diddle Arena marks the beginning of a decidedly fan-friendly schedule for the Tops, who will never play more than a few hours from Bowling Green, except for the Nov. 9 trip to Phoenix to face Grand Canyon, all the way through late December. It is a rugged non-conference slate, with a home matchup against potential conference champions Lipscomb and Jackson State, a road game at Kentucky, then a renewed rivalry matchup at home against Marshall, followed by a short trip to Evansville, plus Murray State and Seattle later at home in December.

“We’re playing some of the best teams in the country here right from the beginning,” Plona said. “No matter what happens or what the result is, if we control what we do in our process, we’ll learn from it, we’ll get better from it. But don’t get me wrong – I think we’ll feel a lot better if we get off to a great start here at home than if we hit a couple bumps in the road.”

“I do think it’s cool … that maybe other than the Grand Canyon game before Christmas, everything else … if our fans want to watch us play, they can come to every single game.”