The home dates are dwindling for Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team.

The Hilltoppers host longtime rival Middle Tennessee on Saturday night in a 7 p.m. matchup at E.A. Diddle Arena, with just two more home game after before WKU heads down to Huntsville, Alabama, for the Conference USA Tournament from March 10-14 at Propst Arena.

The Hilltoppers would very much like to stack a few more wins between now and then, starting with the Blue Raiders. Saturday’s game will steamed live on ESPN+.

WKU (13-11 overall, 6-7 CUSA) is coming off a solid 80-70 home win against FIU last Saturday, with this Saturday’s matchup presenting an opportunity to close out the three-game homestand with a 2-1 record.

“I think our guys feel like we’re in a good place right now,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “The win on Saturday versus FIU was important. I just thought at halftime we basically thought, ‘All right, we’ve been working our tails off and I can sense that we’re a little tired, but man this is the time where you dig down deep. If we’re all really important to each other, we’re going to dig down deep.’ And to their credit, they did.”

The Hilltoppers got the win despite playing without leading scorer Teagan Moore for the fifth straight game. Plona was hopeful Monday that Moore, a redshirt sophomore averaging 17.2 points in 19 games played this season, will be available to play Saturday after missing time recovering from a concussion suffered late in the home loss to Liberty on Jan. 21.

The Tops roared back from an eight-point halftime deficit by scoring 50 points over the final 20 minutes to claim the win. Senior forward Grant Newell poured in a game-high 23 points, including five made 3-pointers, forward/center Blaise Keita tallied his second career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and senior guard Cam Haffner scored 16 points in his first game action after being benched the previous three contests.

WKU will be shooting for the regular-season sweep against MTSU (12-12, 6-7 CUSA), which snapped a five-game losing streak with a 90-87 road win against Kennesaw State on Thursday night.

The Blue Raiders hit nine 3-pointers in the win, led by three from Marcus Whitlock Jr.

In the first matchup, the Tops held MTSU just 4-of-19 shooting from 3-point range in a 65-60 win Jan. 31 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

“We’ve done a better job as far as our defense goes when we pressure out and make teams feel us and make them feel the heat or the pressure, and have a little discomfort and not have the rhythm to shoot,” Plona said. “I thought that was successful against Middle the first time through for sure, and a lot of their guys are shoot-first from the perimeter. We did notice if they make nine or more 3s, their record is way better than if they make eight or less.”

Redshirt freshman guard Kade Unseld had a breakout performance in that win against the Blue Raiders, scoring a career-high 17 points while hitting five 3-pointers. Unseld, a Bowling Green native who starred at nearby Warren Central High School, struggled to a 1-for-10 night the following game against Jax State, but hit a pair of 3s on six tries against FIU while often drawing the toughest defensive assignment.

“He obviously has great ability to shoot the basketball, but he’s more than just a spot shooter,” Plona said. “He can play and guard multiple positions. He’s a guard, but he can play and guard those 6-6, 6-5 guys a little bit. He’s really willing to do whatever it takes on the defensive end to help us win. He’s never in his feelings about what he has to do. Whatever his job is on the court, he wants to do it.”

The Tops’ matchup against MTSU is the second of a Valentine’s Day doubleheader at Diddle, with the Lady Toppers squaring off against Jax State in a 2 p.m. game.

“Obviously they’re a rival, but man I don’t know, every game is important,” Plona said of MTSU. “To us, there’s no more important games (than others) – there’s seven games to go in the regular season. There’s (none) that’s more important than another. We’d like to protect our home court. We’ve dropped a couple here. We want to make sure that doesn’t continue.”