WKU freshman guard Kevin Massiah puts the exclamation point on the

While the Western Kentucky football team picked up the largest win in the programs history Friday night, the mens basketball squad earned a modest victory of its own. The Hilltopper hoopsters took apart St. Francis 80-45 in front of 3,641 at E.A. Diddle Arena, running their homecourt win streak to 27 games. Even more importantly, however, WKU outrebounded the Red Storm 54-26. It was the first time the Toppers had won the rebounding battle since Dec. 1 against Auburn. Im very, very happy about the rebounding, WKU coach Dennis Felton said. We forced them to miss an awful lot of shots and then we cleaned most of them up. Western continued its recent trend of tenacious defense, holding St. Francis to just 30.2 percent from the floor. St. Francis freshman guard Darshan Luckey came into the contest as the 17th leading scorer in the nation, with a 22.7 points per game average, but Western held him to just five points on 2-of-17 shooting. I thought that they did a very good job of clamping down on Luckey, said St. Francis coach Bobby Jones, a former WKU player and assistant coach. I figured they would put (Mike) Wells on him and he is just a fantastic defender as well as a good shooter. They really frustrated Luckey and he was never able to get into the game. The Red Storm (3-4) didnt help itself out by going a miserable 2-for-18 from the free throw line. Four Western players scored in double figures. Nate Williams, David Boyden and Wells each scored 15 points to lead the way for Western. Boyden also led Western with 12 rebounds, which gave him his second double-double of the season. Freshman forward Jamaal Brown scored a career-high 13 and also added five rebounds. He had a fantastic game. He played with a lot of confidence and poise and aggression, Felton said. Tonight was also probably the first time he has scored with his back to the basket. Jason Osborne led St. Francis with 18 points and six rebounds. I wasnt anticipating that they would start him and go to him so hard, Felton said. They did it for a good reason, though hes a good player. Western led by as many as 37 in the second half before winning by the final 35-point margin. Western Kentucky came out the gates strong, hitting six of its first seven shots to take an early 18-4 lead, but when Felton went the bench, St. Francis climbed back into the game. The Red Storm used a 10-4 spurt to cut the deficit to seven with two minutes left in the first half. Patrick Sparks hit a layup and a 3-pointer to pushed the WKU lead back out to 14 at halftime. Jones was coaching in his first game in Diddle Arena since 1994 when he was an assistant under Ralph Willard. I wish this could have been a little bit of a homecoming. This was the worst loss weve had this season, Jones said. It was good to be back, though. I have a lot of good memories in this building. Western (5-3) was scheduled to take an early flight to California today for its Monday matchup at Pacific.