Hilltoppers pick up big bounce-back win at home against Owls

Published 6:50 pm Saturday, January 11, 2025

Hank Plona has been coaching basketball long enough to know most every team experiences its share of peaks and valleys over the course of a season.

Plona hoped he saw his team’s lowest point in a home loss to Jacksonville State on Thursday night, when the Tops got bullied in the paint and were outrebounded by 20 for their second straight loss.

Saturday showed that the Hilltoppers were ready to start climbing again. WKU held down Conference USA’s top-scoring team and held its own in the rebounding department to claim an impressive 85-69 win against Kennesaw State at E.A. Diddle Arena.

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The win salvaged the two-game homestand for the Tops and helped reestablish some confidence that had been lagging over a recent stretch of three losses in four games before Saturday’s bounce-back victory.

“I thought we shot good, catch-and-shoot, confident shots,” Plona said. “Yeah, we made some 3s early but man, they were 3s that we wanted to shoot. We drove to the basket, got to the free-throw line. They were aggressive plays where you’ve got to have half a step on somebody. We were able to get to the paint. We were able to get some offensive rebounds and some second-chance points. We were able to make confident plays because I think our focus and our effort.

“I guess effort’s kind of a catch-all word, but just the confidence to make the initial decision that you need to make without hesitation. We looked like a very confident basketball team tonight and I guess I think when you look like that, there’s usually pretty good execution to follow.”

WKU (11-6 overall, 2-2 CUSA) jumped on the visiting Owls early with a 19-2 run to grab a 27-9 lead with 7:58 left in the first half. Tyrone Marshall Jr.’s 3-pointer pushed the Tops’ lead to 21 with 6:10 left in the first half.

Kennesaw State (9-7, 1-2 CUSA) trimmed that to 11 points with just more than two minutes before halftime, but Marshall again delivered with another 3-pointer and Jalen Jackson’s jumper with 29 seconds left set WKU up with a 40-25 halftime lead.

The Tops held the Owls to a frigid 1-for-19 effort from beyond the 3-point line in the first half, while shooting 7-for-16 on 3s in the first 20 minutes.

Marshall proved a handful all night for Kennesaw, finishing with 20 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals.

“We just wanted to strive for more,” Marshall said. “You’ve got to dig deep down. I had to just come out with that fire. We just had to come together and fight.”

The Tops also got another stellar offensive performance from senior guard Enoch Kalambay, who followed up his career-high 24-point performance in Thursday’s loss to Jax State with a 19-point, eight-rebound effort on Saturday. Kalambay’s previous career high was 12 points before this week’s back-to-back big scoring days.

“I’m just being myself,” Kalambay said. “It’s definitely going to move forward. I’m going to make sure that I stay consistent. Even if I have a bad game, I won’t let that bother me. I’ll just stay with my team and just keep playing through the ups and downs I’m definitely going to have to go through. So if I have one bad game then it is what it is. I’m just going to make sure that I’m still with my team and not be selfish.”

The Owls, who entered the night averaging 81.1 points per game and featuring two of the top five scorers in CUSA, did pick up the scoring in the second half. The Tops mostly held leading scorer Simeon Cottle in check (15 points, slightly off his average of 18.6 ppg.) but guard Adrian Wooley finished with a game-high 27 points along with 10 rebounds – he was averaging 17.7 points before the game.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Wooley and Richardo Wright cut the margin to eight at 57-49 with 10:08 to go, but answered with a 6-2 spurt capped by another Marshall 3-pointer – he finished with three – to stretch the lead back out to 12 with 9:01 to play.

Kennesaw State never got closer than nine the rest of the way.

Don McHenry added 15 points and Khristian Lander had 14 for the Hilltoppers, who were 26-of-61 (42.6%) shooting and 11-for-26 (42.3%) from 3-point range.

After getting outrebounded 50-30 two nights before, the Tops were nearly even in rebounds Saturday with Kennesaw State finishing with a 45-44 edge.

Plona said he wanted a bigger lineup to combat teams exploiting the Tops’ smaller lineups, a situation that wasn’t helped by a knee injury to 6-foot-8 forward Babacar Faye. When Faye went down with the injury in the Dec. 14 home win against Murray State, he was the team’s second-leading scorer and top rebounder. He hasn’t played since and was scheduled to see a doctor Saturday to reevaluate the knee.

On Saturday, Plona used 6-11 senior forward LeeRoy Odiahi for almost 25 minutes, a season high and the third-most on the team. Fellow 6-11 big man Blaise Keita, still coming back from his own knee injury, logged nearly seven minutes and the pair provided a fairly effective deterrent in the paint.

“I just think that our lack of size is starting to be a real issue,” Plona said. “Teams are trying to take advantage of it. LeeRoy works his tail off and as I look at the stat sheet he led our team in plus/minus (+16) for the game, so were were successful when he was on the floor.

” … He protects the rim. I think he needs to rebound the ball a little better than he did tonight. At the same time, when guys take it to the rim he’ll put both hands up in the air and protect that rim. Obviously on offense he’s unselfish, meaning he doesn’t really care if he gets the ball or not. He goes to different spots and tries to help other guys get open. When you have LeeRoy and Blaise at the five, obviously we can play Enoch and Tyrone quite a bit together too. Rather than just rotating them in on spot or having them at four and five, we had Enoch, Woo and a big on the floor.”

WKU is looking at a light week with no Thursday game before heading back on the road to face Middle Tennessee on Saturday in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It’s the first of three straight road games for the Tops, who will visit Louisiana Tech and Sam Houston the following week.

About Jeff Nations

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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