Western Kentucky’s Hank Plona set out to find some challenges for his team soon after he was elevated to head coach after serving as the program’s top assistant last year.

Plona, who got the job after helping former head coach Steve Lutz – now in the same job at Oklahoma State – guide the Tops to the Conference USA Tournament championship last season and back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013.

Duplicating that success, maybe even surpassing it, was Plona’s goal from the start. He sought out tests, hard ones – like playing on the road at No. 8 Kentucky on Tuesday, where the Hilltoppers battled hard in an 87-68 loss to the Wildcats.

“I think when you coach a group of young people, you want them to have the best experience, you want them to gain authentic belief in their ability,” Plona said. “And I don’t think you do that by playing somebody that you’re going to beat up on at home just to pad your record. I think this group and what we’ve been through, I think challenges like this are needed and I think we’re in a good place. I know our record is 3-3. At the same time, I think we just reinforced what our goals are and that we have the potential to make it back to the NCAA Tournament.”

Scheduling former CUSA rival Marshall (4-2) fits right into Plona’s philosophy – facing tough, meaningful competition is the best way to prepare for conference play. The Thundering Herd, now members of the Sun Belt Conference, have a long history of playing the Tops – WKU leads the all-time series 22-12 and won the last meeting 78-69 on March 5, 2022, at E.A. Diddle Arena.

Thundering Herd first-year head coach Corny Jackson was at that game, and many others against WKU, as an assistant under former head coach Dan D’Antoni. Jackson remembers fired-up crowds at Diddle and expects no different for Saturday night’s 7 p.m. matchup. ESPN+ will broadcast the game.

“Hopefully, it’s like it always has been – fun crowd every time we went there in Conference USA,” Jackson said. “They were really energetic. They looked forward to Marshall coming into town, as we did them.

” … I’ve known (Plona) for years. He was a junior-college coach. And when he approached us about getting this on the schedule, we played around with it a little bit but obviously it was an opportunity we didn’t want to miss. It’s a good game, man – good rivalry, great fan bases, great basketball history. So we’re looking forward to going back to Bowling Green on Saturday.”

The Thundering Herd, picked 10th in the Sun Belt preseason coaches’ poll, have played just once this season away from the Cam Henderson Center – an 80-45 loss at No. 6 Purdue on Nov. 23. Marshall rolled to an 82-53 home win against South Carolina State on Wednesday, with graduate senior guard Mikal Dawson scoring a game-high 18 points.

Senior Nate Martin, a 6-foot-8 forward, averages nearly a double-double with 15.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. Fellow 6-8 graduate senior forward Obinna Anochili-Killen is next at 12.2 points per game, with junior guard Dezayne Mingo (10.0 ppg) rounding out Marshall’s double-digit scorers.

The Hilltoppers, coming off an tough shooting night in the loss to Kentucky, have four players scoring in double digits – senior guard Don McHenry (15.8 ppg), senior forward Babacar Faye (15.2 ppg), freshman guard Julius Thedford (12.3 ppg) and graduate senior guard Khristian Lander (10.3 ppg).

“I just watched them play Kentucky the other night, gave them all they could handle,” Jackson said. “The game was a lot closer than the score, so they’re talented. That’s always a fun game. We have our work cut out, but we have to continue to focus on us and continue to get better.”

Plona said after the UK loss that he thought his team played well in spurts, especially at a faster tempo and at times in the half court but went stagnant on offense during the “in-between” and rushed some shots.

Still, there was much to like in Plona’s mind about Tuesday’s game at Rupp.

“I take it that our team isn’t nervous, afraid or scared of anything at all,” Plona said. “We’ve been in some very difficult environments both last year and this year. Obviously this is our second road game. We played at Grand Canyon and played here, which are two very different situations but they’re both very, very challenging.

” … We didn’t break, we didn’t show any kind of weakness. We stayed together. We’ve proved to ourselves time and time again that we’re going to be a pretty tough group to break. I don’t know, I think you get better from these experiences and we’re going to remember the locker room at Grand Canyon, we’re going to remember this one. We’re trying to get some real belief that we can be on the floor with anybody.”