Western Kentucky successfully defended its home court against a pair of Conference USA rivals with wins against Sam Houston last week and Louisiana Tech on Sunday at E.A. Diddle Arena.

Now the Hilltoppers will try once more to see if they can take that winning formula on the road in league play. WKU (9-4 overall, 2-1 CUSA) didn’t fare so well the first time it tried that, taking a 78-67 loss at Jax State on Dec. 29.

But the Tops won two very different tempo matchups after that, racing past Sam Houston for a 102-91 win – WKU scored 60 points in the second half – then grinding through a 66-61 matchup against Louisiana Tech.

“In this league, anybody can beat anybody,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “I think we’ve learned that year after year after year, so it’s good to beat Sam Houston State and Louisiana Tech at home. Now it’s our turn to prove that we can figure out how to get a road win or two.”

The Tops head to the far West for two games this week, starting off with New Mexico State for an 8 p.m. matchup in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Then it’s on to El Paso, Texas, for a 3 p.m. game Saturday against UTEP. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.

Against the Aggies on Thursday, the Tops can expect another stingy defense to try and solve. New Mexico State (8-5, 1-2 CUSA) rank ninth nationally in field goal percentage defense (37.7%), not far off where Louisiana Tech stood (fifth nationally in field goal percentage defense) when the Bulldogs came to Diddle.

“They put a little more pressure on you,” Plona said of the Aggies. “I think they’re a little more similar to us in that I think their intent is to be aggressive in everything they do while protecting the rim. Their guards are going to get up in you and sometimes their front court guys will stay back a little bit to try to get you to shoot difficult 2s or pull-ups.”

Picked third in the CUSA preseason coaches poll, New Mexico State opened the season by winning six straight, then dropped three straight. The Aggies lost pair of conference road games at Florida International on Friday and Missouri State on Sunday.

“They’re undefeated at home,” Plona said. “They got off to a really good start this year. They’ve gotten some big wins. I think they were expected to be a very good team in our league, picked pretty high. They have big, strong, athletic guys that can shoot and score the ball – an athletic front line, have some guards with a lot of experience. So I think they’re a very talented team. I think they’ve gone through some ups and downs the last month or so, just like most of us have.”

Guard Jemel Jones, a preseason all-conference pick, leads the Aggies in scoring at 15.2 points per game. Forward Julius Mims is the only other player on the squad currently scoring in double digits at 10.8 points per game, but New Mexico State boasts impressive depth by ranking 19th nationally with 35.15 bench points per game.

WKU has been just about as productive, tied for 28th nationally in bench points at 34.07 per game.

“I think they have a brand-new team just like we do, so I think you’re trying to figure some things out,” Plona said. “I don’t know that that stat really matters, to be honest with you.

“… For us, sometimes we start Armelo Boone, sometimes we don’t. There’s no message – we’re just trying to figure out what the matchups are for our rotation. I mean, he’s going to have a chance to score a lot of points whether he starts or not.”

HITTING THE BOARDS

Western Kentucky ranked seventh nationally in offensive rebounding heading into Tuesday’s games – but the Tops’ 14.57 offensive boards per outing is only third best in CUSA being Kennesaw State (No. 2 nationally with 16.86) and Sam Houston (No. 4, 15.50) FIU isn’t far off (14th, 14.36) and Louisiana Tech is tied for 49th in the nation.

Plona attributes those high offensive rebound numbers to a similar style of play among most of the teams in CUSA.

“I think we have a strong, physical league,” Plona said. “This is not a league for the weak at heart. This is not a finesse league.”

While Plona wants his team to get offensive rebounds when needed, too many isn’t necessarily indicative of success if the Tops are missing shots too often.

“If we’re only getting one out of five or one out of four, if we’re down in the 20-25% of getting our misses, that’s not very good,” Plona said. “But at the same time, you don’t want to miss too many shots where you’re assuming you’re missing either. If we can be in that 35-40% of our misses, if we can get those and then you hope to have more points than offensive rebounds because that tells you you’re converting more than half of them.”

INJURY UPDATE

WKU could be a little deeper for this week’s road games, with graduate senior Terrion Murdix fully cleared to play. Murdix, who has been sidelined with a knee injury suffered during the Tops’ trip to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis in November, is WKU’s best pure point guard. He has played in six games this season, averaging 7.8 points while dishing out 22 assists.

The prognosis remains less clear for junior forward Louie Semona, who hasn’t played since since the Tops’ Dec. 19 home loss to Tulsa as he deals with a back issue.

“Terrion is a full go in practice, has been fully cleared,” Plona said. “So as of right now, he’s available. We’ll figure out after a couple days exactly what he’ll do. Louie still has not been cleared with his back. If he can’t play this weekend, I guess going on a five-day road trip probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense with a back injury. We’ll see how he does between today and (Wednesday) morning and go from there.”