After a challenging three-game road swing, Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team is ready to get back on its home floor when the Hilltoppers host a pair of Conference USA rivals this week at E.A. Diddle Arena.

First up is Jacksonville State on Thursday night, followed by Kennesaw State on Saturday – those two programs are the top scoring teams in CUSA so far this season.

WKU coach Hank Plona called this week a chance for his team to “regroup” after sandwiching an impressive win at Liberty between two ugly losses – first in the non-conference finale at Michigan (a 112-64 loss on Dec. 29), then after rallying past Liberty for a 71-70 win on Jan. 2 came Saturday’s 85-66 loss at Florida International.

Plona said the Hilltoppers dealt with some lingering injuries and some illness during the recent road swing, but outside of injured forward Babacar Faye the team is at full strength heading into Thursday night’s 7 p.m. matchup at Diddle. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.

“Everybody except Baba is practicing and good to go,” Plona said. “We had a little bit of the flu last week, a little bit of a stomach bug that’s going around. We haven’t had anybody I guess that’s noticeably sick in the last three or four days, so hopefully the rest, sleeping in our own beds, the consistency can help with that.”

WKU (10-5 overall, 1-1 CUSA) had one common thread in all three of its previous road games – miserable offensive showings in the first half that left the team facing a double-digit deficit by the break. The Tops managed to overcome that against Liberty with a furious second-half rally that featured four made 3-pointers out of the final five attempts, but no such comeback materialized against Michigan or FIU.

Plona said he and his staff have been tinkering with solutions for that issue because it is a trend the Tops simply cannot have to contend in conference.

“You don’t ever want to feel a natural desperation – I felt like at FIU we were desperate to score,” Plona said. “It was like ah, here we go again. When you fall behind in games, it does change the initial game plan because you’re running against a short clock. In 120 minutes last week, we were losing for a large, large majority of them and it is hard to be patient and to move the ball and to rotate and to get to the third side and do all those things when you know you are racing the clock.

“I think our offense wasn’t as good; at the same time, I think that’s because we fell right behind. We’ve got to get off to better starts in games.”

Plona also wants to see his team get back to the tough defensive group it had been prior to this three-game stretch, when the Tops’ formerly tough 3-point defense got roasted by both Michigan and FIU.

Jacksonville State (8-5, 0-1 CUSA) has the potential to do more of the same. Led by former WKU coach Ray Harper, the Gamecocks rank second in CUSA in scoring at 80.8 points a game and feature the league’s top individual scorer in graduate senior guard Jaron Pierre Jr., a 6-foot-6 transfer from Wichita State.

Pierre is averaging 22.9 points per game for Jax State. That ranks third in NCAA Division I this season.

“He can score from 3, he can score off the bounce, he can score at the rim … he is a professional scorer, for sure, but at the same time averaging four or five assists a game,” Plona said. “So kind of a complete lead guard. He’s certainly a focus of what they do on the offensive end. I do think everything starts with him. Limiting him and limiting his effectiveness and getting the ball out of his hands and making some other guys beat us, obviously just the numbers show that teams that have been able to do that have been a little more effective.”

The Gamecocks are also the second-best rebounding team in CUSA and feature the lead’s second and third leading rebounders in Michael Houge (8.6 rebounds per game) and Mason Nicholson (7.7 rpg).

WKU continues to rely on senior guard Don McHenry, who is averaging a team-best 17.6 points per game. Freshman guard Julius Thedford capped a strong week of play and is third on the team in scoring with 12.6 points per outing, and the Tops got a boost last week with the return from injury of graduate senior guard Khristian Lander (10.6 ppg).

INJURY UPDATE

The prognosis remains uncertain for 6-8 senior forward Babacar Faye, who hasn’t played since suffering a knee injury against Murray State on Dec. 14. Faye ranks second on the team in scoring at 15.2 points per outing and was pulling down 7.8 rebounds per game.

Plona said Faye will get a follow-up MRI on the knee after this weekend’s games.

“I’m hoping after this four-week checkmark that we have some clarity on what the time line is,” Plona said. “He has a knee injury that we’re hoping is healing on its own, but obviously there will be a four-week follow-up to see if that healing is occurring and he’s progressing or if it’s going to take a little bit longer.”