DRY SPELL: Tops’ offense fades in second half against MTSU

Published 12:50 am Sunday, February 16, 2025

By Jeff Nations

Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team endured an unfortunate dry spell on the wettest night in recent memory Saturday at E.A. Diddle Arena.

The Hilltoppers battled back from an 11-point second-half deficit to pull within one point of Middle Tennessee before the scoring dried up as the Blue Raiders pulled away for an 87-77 victory to sweep the regular-season series.

“I think they physically attacked us right at the beginning of the game and I thought there were some areas where we responded and some areas where we have some room to improve,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “Obviously, they continue to play very well on offense. All of their guards seemed to have by the end of the night a stretch where they really impacted the game. Right when you feel like you focus on one guy, somebody else gets going. All the credit in the world to them — they battled all night. Every time we threw a counterpunch, it seemed like they threw a stronger one.”

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WKU (14-11 overall, 5-7 Conference USA) fell behind by 11 at 51-40 after the Blue Raiders opened the second half on a 7-1 run. In only a little more than five minutes, the Tops clawed nearly all the way back by outscoring MTSU (17-8, 8-4 CUSA) 13-3 to get within one point at 54-53 after Khristian Lander’s layup.

It was still a one-point game after Lander’s tip-in basket got the Tops to within 71-70 with 6:19 left, but the Blue Raiders kept answering even when WKU could not — an 10-0 run for MTSU over next effectively sealed the win, with Essam Mostafa’s layup pushing the lead to 81-70 with just 2:26 to play.

It was another huge night for the 6-foot-9 Mostafa, who notched his second double-double of the season against WKU with game highs of 21 points and 16 rebounds.

“The rebounding is impressive, and a lot of it’s defensive rebounding,” Plona said. “I know at their place he had four offensive and 14 defensive — let me tell you, 11 defensive rebounds (Saturday) and I know he’s ninth or 10th in the country in offensive rebounding too, I’m not minimizing that — but he just seems to clean everything up. And we have a lot of offensive rebounds, so other than him … he just kind of wears on you. He’s so physical. He’s so smart. He plays with angles. On offense, you try to force him to go to his weak hand but then he’ll spin and go baseline and make an under-the-rim shot. He made a couple push shots from six to 10 feet — that’s usually what you want a five man to shoot. He’s just a very uniquely talented player and he plays with a passion to win and he’s obviously been a huge part of their success.”

The Tops had to contend with MTSU guard Jlynn Counter in the first half. The senior kept the Blue Raiders afloat by scoring 18 of his 20 points in the first 20 minutes, nearly matching the Tops by himself for the first 15 minutes.

Back-to-back dunks by WKU’s Leeroy Odiahi put his team up 36-33 with 4:06 left in the first half, but Blue Raiders moved ahead on a Mostafa bucket and then took the lead for good after Hilltopper guard Don McHenry tied the game one last time at 39-all with a made free throw. Camryn Weston did the rest of the damage in the first half, hitting a 3-pointer and converting a layup to give MTSU a 44-39 halftime lead.

The Blue Raiders extended that with their opening scoring burst in the second half, and never quite let the Tops come all the way back the rest of the game.

“I just think they were getting to loose balls faster than us, getting offensive rebounds that we shouldn’t have been letting happen but we continued to let happen,” Lander said. “I think that was the main point for it.”

McHenry tallied a team-high 20 points for the Tops. Lander just missed a double-double with 18 points and nine rebounds along with three assists, Enoch Kalambay added 14 points and Braxton Bayless finished with 11 points. Blaise Keita added a season-high 10 rebounds in the loss.

Weston (20 points), Jestin Porter (14 points) and Torey Alston (12 points) joined Mostafa and Counter as the Blue Raiders had five finish in double-digit scoring.

MTSU scored 19 points off nine forced turnovers, while the Tops scored none off six forced turnovers.

The loss is a season-worst third straight for the Hilltoppers, who still have two games left in this current homestand with Sam Houston coming to Diddle on Thursday for an 8 p.m. game.

Plona thinks his team has the resilience to bounce back from this skid.

“There’s no magic solution to any of this stuff,” Plona said. “If we’re able to kind of keep our group together — there’s some teams that kind of fold at the end. It’s a brutally long season now and the teams that embrace that and the teams that stick together, the teams that take the floor and want to get after it and want to improve and want to get better, those are the ones that on March 11 are usually a lot better than on Feb. 11.

“I think we have a lot of time between now and Thursday night and if we make the choice to dig down and address the issues and to work — which this group always has — hopefully we’re able to come out and get a different result.”

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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