Hot-shooting Flames slip past Tops
Published 10:30 pm Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Western Kentucky pushed Conference USA-leading Liberty to the brink on Wednesday night at E.A. Diddle Arena.
But just as they have most times this season, the Flames stepped back from the edge to earn a 76-69 road victory.
WKU (11-8 overall, 4-4 Conference USA) effectively bottled up Liberty’s multi-talented senior forward Zach Cleveland, but the Flames’ 3-point shooting proved the Hilltoppers’ undoing. Liberty (16-3, 8-0 CUSA) blistered the nets with 17 3-pointers – the most the Tops have given up this season – with a patient attack that often found an open shooter after three or four, sometimes more, passes in a possession.
“They just never stop moving,” WKU freshman guard Armelo Boone said. “They move, move, set screens, set flair screens. They’re a great team, but 17-for-29 from 3 – that’s good.”
Despite falling into an early 15-2 hole to start the game, the Hilltoppers scrapped right back into it by answering with a 15-1 surge to take a 20-16 lead.
Liberty responded to push out to a seven-point lead and still held a 35-32 advantage at halftime despite WKU senior forward Grant Newell’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
A quick burst to start the second half from Boone’s 3-pointer and a jumper by Newell helped WKU regain the lead at 37-36 with 17:02 left in regulation, but the Flames unleashed another shooting barrage. Brett Decker Jr. opened an 18-2 surge with a 3-pointer, one of four Liberty would hit during the stretch that ended with Colin Porter’s trey that put the visitors up 52-39 with 11:40 to go.
“Their elite level of passing is remarkable,” WKU coach Hank Plona said of Liberty. “And they count for more than one – I mean, they count for one 3 but man, once you make four passes and you do scramble and you get three recoveries, and the ball keeps going … man, I’m aware it can be deflating. Championship teams do not get deflated. You do not put your head down. You know that if you made them earn something, then man, they earned it and props to them.”
The Tops, who faded in the second half of Saturday’s 81-65 home loss to Kennesaw State, showed no such inclination Wednesday night. Led by Teagan Moore’s 10 points over the next 11 minutes, WKU whittled the deficit down to 56-50 after Moore’s second 3 of the surge with 7:38 to go.
Newell hit a 3 to get the Tops within five with 1:31 to go, then Ryan Myers hit a pair of free throws after Cleveland was called for his fifth foul – a technical – to make it a one-possession game with 47 seconds to go.
Down 70-67 with the ball and a chance to tie, WKU seemed to do just that when Myers buried a 3-pointer from the wing. The make was waved off, though, as Newell was called for an illegal moving screen on the play.
The Flames closed out the win by hitting five free throws over the final 11 seconds.
The crucial foul call on Newell stood in stark contrast to an even more obvious illegal screen set by Tulsa to set up a game-winning, buzzer-beating 3-pointer against the Tops in an 82-81 loss at Diddle on Dec. 19 – no foul was called on that play.
“Sometimes you look at a travel, an illegal screen and you say, ‘Yeah, it is,’ “ Plona said. “But you could point out about 50 screens either way, probably, in that game. I would tell you it was a focus of us to screen very physical. They have one player that sticks his elbow out every time he screens, they have one player that pushes with two hands every time they screened. And that’s not just Liberty. That happens in college basketball. I thought the loss to Tulsa was tough because I thought that was pretty blatant. I don’t know what this one looked like.
“But you don’t often see that one called and it’s a very, very physical game. I sure would not want to officiate it. But obviously when you make a shot and you make a play, especially with no timeouts and the guys are on the same page, and then the shot goes down and then it’s waved off it certainly hurts.”
Moore led the Tops with 19 points, including a 3-of-4 effort on 3-pointers. Newell had 16 points and four rebounds, Myers hit four 3-pointers and tallied 14 points, and Boone produced his third double-double of the season with 13 points, a game-high 13 rebounds, a pair of assists and two blocks.
Odiahi logged a season-high 21 minutes as the Tops opted to go with a smaller, quicker front court to deal with Cleveland. It worked, as the Flames’ standout forward was limited just three points, five rebounds and a pair of assists – all well below his average.
Odiahi tallied two points, four rebounds and a block.
“Honestly, every game I don’t really expect anything, you know what I mean?,” Odiahi said of his playing time. “I feel like if I play 2 minutes, 5, 20, 30 … I’m going to play the exact same. I’m going to play hard every second I’m in there. Whenever my name’s called, and this goes for the rest of the guys too, whenever our name is called we’re ready to go at that point.”
WKU hit 24-of-57 shots (42.1%) and was 10-of-24 from 3-point range (41.7%) and had a decided edge on points in the paint (26-8), second-chance points (15-5) and fast-break points (8-3) while out rebounding the Flames 34-28.
“We’ve had fight most games this year, probably this past Saturday notwithstanding,” Plona said. “I think we’ve battled and been right there. We have to be more efficient on the offensive end. And the beginning of the second half, I think we started 3-for-15 or 3-for-17 and yeah sure, there’s a couple misses that you can make but that always happens. We have got to stop shooting non-layup 2s, we have got to stop shooting random, off-the-dribble, not get all the way to the basket buckets.”
After losing two during this three-game homestand, the Tops now face three straight road games starting with a trip to Sam Houston on Saturday in Huntsville, Texas. WKU won the first meeting between the programs, a 102-91 decision on Jan. 2 at Diddle.
After facing the Bearkats, the Tops are at Kennesaw State (Jan. 28) and at Middle Tennessee (Jan. 31) for three separate road trips. Wednesday’s loss dropped WKU into a three-way tie for fifth in the CUSA regular-season standings, four games back of the Flames.
Plona said the focus of his team is to continue improving and priming for a potential run in the postseason.
“We do understand that whatever team is together, cohesive, efficient and peaks in March is going to be the best team,” Plona said. “I want to win at Sam Houston on Saturday with every single thing that we have and I know that they do, too – and our players do.
“… When you start thinking about the big picture, I know I don’t coach quite as well. I don’t think the players play quite as well. In practice, we’ve got to get better at basketball.”
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