Western Kentucky turned to some veteran leadership to end a four-game losing streak with Saturday’s 65-60 road victory at Conference USA rival Middle Tennessee.

Redshirt freshman Kade Unseld scored a game-high 17 points, graduate senior forward Blaise Keita grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds and graduate senior point guard Terrion Murdix dished out a team-best seven assists.

WKU coach Hank Plona said that trio along with graduate senior forward Leeroy Odiahi, junior guard Jack Edelen, redshirt junior guard Cade Stinnett and redshirt sophomore guard Teegan Moore – all second-year members of the program – has been instrumental in helping the Hilltoppers weather a rough patch in the season.

“The reality is you have these ups and downs, and it is the core that believes in who we are, what our university is, how we run our program, they define our culture,” Plona said. “Those guys have all been very impactful in helping us. I think we’re in a better place as a team right now than we’ve been all year and that’s hard after you lose four in a row.”

After going 1-2 through three straight road games, the Tops are back home to face Jacksonville State on Thursday night in an 8 p.m. matchup at E.A. Diddle Arena. CBS Sports Network will have the broadcast.

WKU (12-10 overall, 5-6 CUSA) has been solid at home this season, winning eight out of 11 matchups at Diddle. After a deflating loss at Sam Houston to start the just completed road stretch, the Tops were much more competitive in a 72-69 loss at Kennesaw State on Jan. 28 before Saturday’s breakthrough win at MTSU.

“All in all, I thought we played better as a basketball team in both games last week,” Plona said. “We knew going into the year that the stretch that we just kind of completed on the road was going to be a challenging one – obviously it was made a little more challenging with some injuries and things like that. But I thought from where we were nine days ago at Sam Houston, which probably felt like a little bit of a bottoming out, to right now … I think we’re in a better place. Obviously you always wish you could’ve closed both games. Hopefully we learned a little bit. We’ve got to figure out how to keep scoring in the last five minutes with leads, which is something we’re going to have to keep working on. But very happy to win at Middle, very happy for the guys – they put a lot of work in last week and it was a good to feel a reward and some positive reinforcement, so we’ll try to build on that and get ready for Jax State on Thursday.”

The Tops got the win against the Blue Raiders despite missing Moore, the team’s leading scorer who has been out of action since sustaining a concussion late in a home loss to Liberty on Jan. 21. Plona said Moore remains in concussion protocol which prohibits physical contact in practice, but he has been lifting weights and shooting. Moore remains questionable for Thursday with Saturday’s home game against FIU “a stronger possibility” for his return, Plona said.

Also missing during the past two road games was senior forward/center Noah Boyde, who did not travel with the team. Boyde is healthy, but Plona had not decided Monday whether the 7-foot native of Monchy, St. Lucia would suit up for Thursday’s game against Jax State.

“Just trying to figure out how to make our team better,” Plona said. “He’s healthy … we will see. I’d say it’s undetermined. Literally, we were just talking about that. And to me, I think he just needs to continue to make sure he’s able and willing to regardless of what his role is to just be locked in to help us win.”

Senior guard Cam Haffner has also been a healthy scratch the past two games.

“Cam’s very willing – it’s my decision he hasn’t played in the last couple games,” Plona said of Haffner. “(He’s) practicing, suiting up, his intent is correct. Obviously we’ve just made some decisions to go with some other players. Cam’s working very, very hard and he’s an important part of the team and I’m hoping for his sake that he gets back to helping us.”

Unseld and Stinnett have continued to pick up minutes. Stinnett, after totaling just 13 minutes through the Tops’ first 19 games, had 34 minutes of game action in the road matchups against Sam Houston and Kennesaw before getting just one minute at MTSU – freshman guard Armelo Boone returned from ankle injury after missing two games and scored 12 points against the Blue Raiders.

“He plays to win,” Plona said of Stinnett, a former Greenwood High School standout. “Cade’s a good basketball player, obviously averaged 16, 17 points at Centre College before he got here. When you’re trying short term and long term trying to figure out how to get on the winning track, playing the guys that have an intent to do whatever the team needs for team success in that moment … you start rewarding those things, it’s crazy how those things spread. I thought Cade did a great job at Kennesaw State. Cade’s in there because he can help us win the game.”

The same goes for Unseld, like Stinnett a Bowling Green native who starred at Warren Central High School.

“He finds ways,” Plona said of Unseld. “He’s confident, he’s aggressive. He really cares about our team’s success. I mean, he grew up wanting to be out there in Diddle and play well. He’s a guy that we’ve believed in – I’ve believed in – from the very beginning. I’m proud of him that he’s stuck through it, even though he maybe didn’t get that breakout game quite as soon as we thought maybe he would. But obviously he’s stepped up here this past week and when you have a guy who’s intent is what his is, it’s a real positive for our team because of his desire to win and his desire to be great here.”

Jax State (11-10, 6-4 CUSA), led by former WKU head coach Ray Harper, saw its three-game win streak end with a 74-67 road loss at Missouri State on Saturday. Guard Mostapha El Moutaouakkil leads the Gamecocks with 18.5 points per game, with guard AC Bryant next at 13.1 points per outing.

“They’ve had a good run at it here,” Plona said. “Obviously the kid Mostapha scores a ton of points. We’ll have to figure out how to limit that. AC Bryant has been a great shooter – when they’ve been successful, he makes five, six, seven 3s. They play with confidence. They certainly have great role definition. They know who they are.”

Jax State won the first meeting 78-67 on Dec. 29 in Jacksonville, Alabama, a game where the Tops fell behind early in the first half and never managed to get back into contention.

Those slow starts, along with a few weak finishes, have been a constant topic in the locker room and on the practice court for WKU.

“We talk about it all the time,” Plona said. “We are talking start and finish, start and finish, start and finish. I feel like if we don’t talk about it there’s just an elephant in the room, so that doesn’t help. We’re all aware.

“… We’ve got to figure that out. We’ve tried some different lineups, we’ve tried some different combinations. We have to defensively, in my opinion, not focus on what they’re trying to do. I think when we hesitate and at the very beginning of the game when it’s ‘All right, we’re supposed to run this, they’re gonna run this,’ we don’t do good when we think like that. We do good when it’s ‘All right, I’ve got to be aggressive, I’ve got to rebound, we’ve got to play with pace, we’ve got to be confident.’ And then once the flow of the game happens and some things go wrong, you naturally think like that.”