A hard road stretch continues for Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team, which follows up a damaging loss at Middle Tennessee on Saturday with a visit to Conference USA preseason favorite Louisiana Tech on Thursday night.

Two days after that, the Tops go into Huntsville, Texas, to face defending CUSA regular-season champion Sam Houston.

“Tough one on Saturday, but at the same time we’ve got I guess 13 more opportunities to get big wins,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “There are no easy games in this league. We’re at La Tech and Sam Houston this week – obviously an important week for us. Through all the ups and downs – and there’s certainly been some of both – we’ve got to keep moving forward.”

WKU (11-7 overall, 2-3 CUSA) heads into Thursday’s matchup against the Bulldogs at Thomas Assembly Center in Ruston, Louisiana, more short-handed than ever after losing standout freshman guard Julius Thedford to injury in Saturday’s 71-57 loss at MTSU.

Thedford, who dislocated his right kneecap, is out for likely at least a month but may still return before the season ends.  Senior forward Babacar Faye, who leads the Tops in rebounding and is second on the squad in scoring, also remains sidelined with a knee injury suffered in the Dec. 14 home game against Murray State. Like Thedford, Faye may return by the end of the season depending on his continued recovery.

This road swing in particular could be a bad time for the Tops to be missing key players, even if the current CUSA standings don’t reflect that. Louisiana Tech, WKU and Sam Houston – the top three picks in the preseason coaches’ poll – are a combined 5-12 in league play so far.

Plona thinks his team, just like Louisiana Tech and Sam Houston, is better than the league record shows.

“We have a resilience to us, we have a championship mentality to us,” Plona said. “There’s nobody on our team that has not had success at this level and in this league. We kind of brought this team back – you’re trying to recreate what you did and expand on it and that’s always hard to do. I look at the two teams we’re playing this week and us – we were the top three seeds last year, the top three preseason picks this year.

“And man, the other teams in our league have a hunger and youthful energy and a newness, and they’re trying to accomplish something for the first time. Whereas it seems the three of us … we each have a first-team all-league player back … Sam won the league (last year), we won the tournament, La Tech’s picked to win the league. And I will just add we all started with a lot of road games in the league. We’ve had two home games, three road games in the league and we’re 2-3. La Tech’s had two home games, four road games – they’re 2-4. We learned a year ago that home-road splits are kind of the biggest thing.”

Louisiana Tech (13-6, 2-4 CUSA) features reigning CUSA Player of the Year Daniel Batcho, a 6-foot-11 force in the interior. Batcho is the fourth-leading scorer in CUSA with 18.7 points per outing off the league’s top field-goal percentage of 73.6%

“Batcho’s a handful,” Plona said. ” … Lob threat, offensive rebounder, shot blocker – he’s a unique talent. I think he’s a potential NBA player.”

Bulldogs guard Sean Newman Jr. currently leads CUSA and is second in the nation in assists with a total of 177 (9.3 assists per game) on the season.

“Sean Newman leads the country in assists,” Plona said. “They’re obviously doing a great job of getting (Batcho) the ball.”

WKU, currently averaging 77.4 points per game, ranks fifth in the nation in adjusted tempo with an average of 73.4 possessions per 40 minutes.

Senior guard Don McHenry, the Tops’ leading scorer at 16.8 points per game (sixth in CUSA) will surely draw extra attention from La Tech. Thursday’s game starts at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

“They try to force you into some mid-range shots,” Plona said. “Teams seem to be pressuring out on McHenry, but everybody else they kind of pressure back. So we’re going to have to be confident and aggressive when we shoot the ball and not have hesitation and not be affected by a shot blocker at the rim.”