Western Kentucky, Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech are bunched together in the Conference USA men’s basketball standings.

It’s just as predicted in the CUSA preseason coaches’ poll – those programs were all lumped together then as well, with Louisiana Tech the preseason favorite, followed by WKU and Sam Houston as the trio collected eight of the 10 first-place votes.

The grouping might have been correct, but so far the placement of that threesome hasn’t measured up to the preseason hype. Louisiana Tech has lost two straight conference games – both at home – and sits seventh in CUSA with a 6-7 mark in league play. WKU is right behind the Bulldogs in eighth at 5-7, while Sam Houston is even further back in the 10-team conference with a 3-10 record in CUSA, ninth in the current standings.

There’s still time to climb in the standings, and for the Hilltoppers that means trying to springboard with wins against their closest competitors. WKU (14-11 overall, 5-7 CUSA) hosts Sam Houston (10-16, 3-10) on Thursday night at 8 p.m. at E.A. Diddle Arena – a game set to be broadcast on ESPNU. Then Louisiana Tech comes to town Saturday night as the Tops hope to close out a three-game homestand with a winning record after dropping Saturday’s rematch with Middle Tennessee 87-77 at Diddle.

“Both teams are probably similar to us in that they’ve had some ups and downs this year after having been maybe picked to finish near the top,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “Obviously we’ve seen them both before. We had a good win down at Sam (Houston) a couple weeks ago. They’re coming off two straight wins, so I would think that they’ll have a juice and fire to them so we’ve got to make sure that we have our best effort here on Thursday. And then obviously an opportunity to play La Tech on Saturday, a team that’s very, very talented and has had some ups and downs throughout the year.”

The Hilltoppers are in the midst of a season-worst three-game losing streak, but the Bearkats could provide the remedy. WKU won the first meeting 75-66 on Jan. 25 in Huntsville, Texas. The Tops held Sam Houston’s leading scorer Lamar Wilkerson to just 12 points and a pair of 3-pointers – Wilkerson ranks second in scoring in CUSA (19.7 points per game) and is the top 3-point shooter at 43.9% this season, so a similar defensive showing against the senior guard would be most welcome for Plona.

“He seems to be the key,” Plona said. “He was obviously their lead dog a year ago too, so we’re very familiar with him. He’s kind of a two-guard maybe, so he doesn’t bring the ball up a whole lot … will from time to time, but man, if you can limit touches – they run a lot of quick hitters for him, bring him off a lot of flair screens, a lot of down screens. So if you can be in the passing lane and pressure him out, I just think he’s got to be the focal point of everything we do. We did a good job of that down there. I’m sure they’ll have new wrinkles and ways to get him the ball and get him touches in his spots, so we’ve just got to make sure we don’t lose the focus on him.”

The Hilltoppers have had little trouble putting points on the board this season, even during this recent downturn. WKU ranks as the top-scoring team in CUSA at 77.8 points per game. But in the last three games, the Tops have allowed their opponents to score more than 75 points each time as they’ve slid to ninth in scoring defense (75.7 points allowed), with only Sam Houston (75.8) worse in that category in CUSA.

Plona thinks other teams “have gotten a little too comfortable handling the ball” against his squad.

“The tempo we play, sometimes the overall numbers can get a little higher,” Plona said. “Now, our defense has not been as strong the last few games for sure. The game’s connected – we were scoring, then all of a sudden offense was an issue about a month ago. So our defense was good, now you focus on scoring the ball a little bit. Maybe that’s part of who you play – personnel – maybe it’s the different combinations, I’m not sure. But our defense does need to improve. I thought vs. Middle for a stretch we were pretty good and then the defensive rebounding was giving us some issues. It’s just a combination of everything.”

In the first matchup against the Bearkats, WKU’s leading scorer Don McHenry (18 points per game, fifth in CUSA) scored a game-high 20 points. And McHenry had plenty of help, with four Tops scoring in double digits in the win.

The win against Sam Houston was the Tops’ first with the current rotation configuration, two games after freshman guard Julius Thedford became the latest in a long list of Hilltoppers sidelined by injury when he dislocated his right knee in the first matchup against MTSU. Thedford hasn’t played since, joining standout forward Babacar Faye – who suffered a knee injury in December – as two more key pieces the Tops have had to do without.

In their absence, other WKU players have emerged as more consistent scorers – graduate senior Khristian Lander in particular, but also increased contributions from Tyrone Marshall Jr. and Braxton Bayless.

“I know that he’s been shooting the ball very well and has been very efficient in scoring at the rim,” Plona said of Lander, who is up to 12.3 points per game. “And I think he’s probably had the most efficient scoring stretch of his career. He certainly stands out. Tyrone’s been a little up and down, but man when we’re really good he has games where he can get 15 to 20. So we’re trying to make sure Tyrone continues to be aggressive. He’s unselfish to a fault sometimes. And I know he missed some shots the other night, but we need him to be a consistent scoring factor for us. And Braxton Bayless has been a little bit better scoring the ball recently too, really starting with the Sam game. I think if you look the last five or six (games), he’s probably gone from six or seven (points) a game to 12 or 13 a game. So we certainly need those three guys to continue be efficient and aggressive putting the ball in the basket.”