Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball secured an 80-73 victory on the road over UTEP on Thursday night at Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.

The Hilltoppers improved to 16-12 overall and now hold a 7-8 mark in Conference USA play with the win.

“I know this is important to Hilltopper Nation. This is important to us, I promise you that,” WKU coach Hank Plona said during his postgame interview on the Hilltopper Radio Network. “It’s awesome to come down here and get a win. We just talked about how we’re not going to just settle for this one, how we’re going to have the courage to prepare tomorrow and we’re going to stick together and we’re going to go to Las Cruces (to play New Mexico State on Saturday). And man, this would be an unbelievable road trip to kind of show what we’re made of if we’re able to do this.”

Thursday’s win saw five Hilltoppers finish with double figures in the scoring column, with Tyrone Marshall Jr. leading the team’s scoring efforts with 16 points on a 6-of-9 shooting clip from the field and nine rebounds. Khristian Lander posted a 10-point, 11-rebound double-double to lead the team on the boards, and Braxton Bayless led the Tops in assists with three while tallying 14 points and six rebounds.

Don McHenry finished with 15 points, five rebounds and a pair of assists, surpassing 1,000 career points at WKU following the performance. Jack Edelen rounded out the Tops to reach double figures, adding 11 points on a 4-of-5 clip from the field and tying a career high for scoring previously set on Feb. 20 facing Sam Houston.

As a team, the Tops shot the ball at a 50% clip (27-for-54) while holding the Miners to just 29.5% (18-for-61) from the field and 16.0% (4-for-25) from beyond the 3-point arc. WKU outscored UTEP 44-28 in the paint and 14-5 on fast breaks.

The Tops’ defense also successfully held the league’s ninth-leading scorer in Otis Frazier III to just four points on the night.

After the Miners scored the first points of the game to take a 2-0 lead two minutes in, the Tops ripped off seven straight with a Bayless three-point play followed by another made jumper by Bayless and a McHenry second-chance floater to enter the first media break leading, 7-2.

WKU jumped out to a nine-point, 17-8 lead with a Lander layup off a fast break with 12:40 to play in the first. After a drawn foul on a 3-point attempt narrowed the Miners’ deficit, the Hilltoppers responded with a 12-0 run to push the lead to 18, 29-11, with 6:37 to play until the half and force a UTEP timeout. UTEP hit a jumper to cut the Tops’ scoring streak, but WKU managed another 9-0 run to increase the team’s lead to 25, 38-13, with 3:08 remaining in the first.

The 21-2 run by WKU spanned over eight minutes of play before UTEP cut into the Hilltopper lead and brought the margin to 17, 40-23, entering the half.

Bayless accounted for 12 first-half points, hitting on 4-of-8 attempts from the field while grabbing four boards. The Tops’ defense limited the Miners to just 21.9% (7-of-32) from the field and 7.7% (1-of-13) from deep in the first half.

The Miners slowly gathered momentum entering the second half, cutting the Tops’ lead to 11, 42-31, at the under-16 media break of the second. A second-chance jumper from the Tops’ Leeroy Odiahi brought the margin back out to 13 before the Miners managed to cut the lead down to single digits, 45-36, for the first time since the 10:23 mark of the first half.

The Tops responded with a made pair at the line by McHenry, followed by buckets from McHenry and Edelen to give the Tops a 12-point cushion with 11:26 to play in regulation.

A made 3 followed by a two-handed jam by UTEP cut the Hilltopper lead down to seven, 54-47, with 9:59 to play. Blaise Keita connected on a layup in the paint to make it a nine-point game before a 5-0 run by the Miners brought the count to 56-52 with 8:52 remaining.

A jumper in the paint by the Miners cut the Hilltopper lead to three, 59-56, with 7:33 to play, then a pair at the free-throw line by McHenry followed by one at the line by the Miners made it a four-point, 61-57 game with 6:57 remaining.

The Hilltoppers responded with eight straight to regain a double-digit advantage, as Marshall hit both at the free-throw line to give WKU a 12-point, 69-57 lead with 4:02 to play. The teams traded buckets for the remainder of the outing with WKU maintaining its lead and closing out the Miners by a final count of 80-73.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Plona said. “We watch games on TV all the time and when you go on the road and you pull ahead like we did, I don’t know — I always assume that the other team is going to kind of make a charge and the building will get energized and that’s exactly what happened. We’ll certainly try to figure out how to be a little bit cleaner as far as keeping those leads, but man they’re a good basketball team. They’re playing for their livelihoods just like we were.

“Really of the guys to withstand a run when they start coming back. … The resilience and toughness of our group to not fold, to be able to bounce back and make that run was awesome to see.”

The all-time series between the Hilltoppers and the Miners now stands at 13-2.

WKU continues its final road trip of the 2024-25 regular season visiting New Mexico State on Saturday. Tipoff from Pan American Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico is slated for 5 p.m. CT with the game streaming live on ESPN+.