Scorching second half helps Tops blow past Aggies

Published 6:38 pm Saturday, February 1, 2025

By Jeff Nations

Saturday’s game at E.A. Diddle Arena had all the signs of a probable grim, grind-it-out kind of day for Western Kentucky.

The Hilltoppers entered the week as Conference USA’s worst shooting team and were going up against CUSA’s top defensive squad in visiting New Mexico State.

Points were likely to be hard to come by for WKU.

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Or not.

The Hilltoppers put together a rock-solid first half, then shot the roof off the building for the first 10-plus minutes of the second half to demolish the Aggies for a 101-69 victory.

WKU (14-8 overall, 5-4 CUSA) used a late spurt to grab a solid 42-34 halftime lead, but coach Hank Plona had a message for his team at the half – stay confident, keep attacking and the Aggies would wear down.

“I ain’t going to lie, they kind of wore down for sure,” WKU senior guard Don McHenry said.

The Tops blistered New Mexico State (12-10, 5-4 CUSA) over the first nine minutes of the second half, connecting at a ridiculous 83.3% (10-of-12) clip from the field and even better from 3-point range (6-of-7 for 85.7%) to blow the game wide open. Tyrone Marshall Jr.’s 3-pointer with 10:19 to play put the Tops up 30 points at 79-49, and WKU barely cooled off from there.

After a perfectly good first half of shooting 53.1% (17-of-32) overall and 7-of-17 from the 3-point line, WKU shot 62.9% (22-of-35) and scorching 11-of-19 (57.9%) on 3-pointers over the final 20 minutes.

“You never really expect a game to go like that and obviously it’s kind of a pleasant surprise when it does,” Plona said. “I think you always hope for the best, but at least myself as a coach I always prepare for the worst. I think you have to because that’s a very good basketball team. I’m already mentally preparing for our return trip down there, which will not be easy. That’s a 5-4 team here at the turn just like we are.”

McHenry scored a game-high 27 points and made a career-high seven 3-pointers in the win.

“It’s just your teammates finding you,” McHenry said. “The sets we run, it’s so much today I feel like they focused on trying to take away that eventually it just opened up for a lot of clean looks and I was able to knock them down.”

Plona has been stressing to his team to focus on taking the catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and pass up attempts off the dribble. On Saturday, McHenry was hitting them either way.

“Sometimes when Don gets cooking like that – 7-for-9 – sometimes you bend the shooting rules a little bit for Don,” Plona said. “I’ve seen Don make a lot of basketball plays with the ball that I can’t tell you I’ve coached many guys that can make.”

The Tops closed out the first half on an 8-2 run, with McHenry (15 points at the break) scoring on a drive plus a free throw on the foul, then Marshall hitting a 3-pointer before Khristian Lander dashed through the lane for a buzzer-beating layup.

Marshall had nine points at the break, but he was just getting started. The graduate senior forward from Nashville scored a career-high 24 points and added seven rebounds. Marshall was 4-of-7 from 3-point range.

“I don’t fully expect them to leave him wide open,” Plona said. “I think they think they had him scouted – I heard them yelling first half to make him go left on everything. I said (to Marshall) ‘you probably hear that too – forget what they’re saying, man. You’re open, shoot the ball. If you can get to your right hand, get to your right hand. If you can spin back, spin back.’ It just seemed like he was open on every catch.”

Marshall has been hearing from the Tops’ coaching staff that he needed to stop passing up shots off the catch and start putting them up.

“It was definitely really fun to be out there and knock down some shots,” Marshall said. “Last game I was kind of off, but my teammates just told me to keep going, keep shooting – my coaches and them. And my guys finding me in my spots, so it was definitely exciting during that today.”

McHenry and Marshall shot a combined 18-of-25 from the field with 11 3-pointers in the win.

“For them both to kind of get heated up at the same time – I know Braxton (Bayless) threw in a couple there too – it seemed like I wasn’t calling many plays there for that stretch,” Plona said. “It just seemed like we were getting defensive stops, runouts and to their credit making the extra pass, making the unselfish play that led to pretty wide-open shots. Definitely a very positive stretch for our team. We’ll see if we can recreate that – easier said than done.”

Enoch Kalambay added 13 points, Lander had 11 and Bayless finished with 10 as the Tops had five players score in double-digit scoring.

“It just was rolling pretty early for us today,” McHenry said. “Coach (Plona), great speech to us at halftime. As you see, something was different a little bit for us as we came out in that second half.

” … Everybody just seemed like they were flowing, just free-flowing and playing confident.”

WKU ended up shooting 58.2% from the field and an even 50% from 3-point range (18-of-36). Those 18 made 3s was just one off the program’s single-game record of 19 set against Kentucky State in 2022.

The win closed out a successful homestand for the Tops, who beat UTEP 78-74 on Thursday night. Saturday’s win boosted WKU’s home record to 11-2 this season – the Hilltoppers have five home games left at home out of the remaining nine regular-season games.

“These last couple games we’ve obviously made some steps in the right direction,” Plona said. “Certainly today it seemed like we were a very confident basketball team out there. I’m very proud of certainly these last three weeks of how these guys have persevered and improved and gotten better. It’s great to have a day like today where it kind of confirms that all the work we’re putting in has a chance to really pay off for us.”

The Tops return to action Thursday at CUSA rival Kennesaw State.

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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