MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team hit a damaging pothole in the “Hundred Miles of Hate” rivalry matchup against Middle Tennessee on Saturday night.

And while the Hilltoppers’ path to a Conference USA regular-season title is still technically intact, the 74-72 loss to the host Blue Raiders at the Murphy Center left that pursuit a decidedly uphill climb for WKU.

With just three regular-season games to go, the Tops are now two full games behind CUSA co-leaders Louisiana Tech and Sam Houston State.

“We can’t worry about what other people are doing,” WKU coach Steve Lutz said. “We dropped a game tonight that we had every opportunity to win and for whatever reason we didn’t come out and play well tonight. Give Middle Tennessee credit and give (MTSU head coach) Nick (McDevitt) credit – those guys have been playing better and they were tougher than us tonight. They were more athletic than us. They were more physical than us. They played harder than us. And as I said earlier, they got all the 50-50 balls.

“But with that being said, you’ve got three games to go and if you can win those games, maybe you can still win the league. Or you can finish second and maybe still get that double-bye (in the CUSA tournament). But the bottom line is we don’t need to worry about conference championships. We need to worry about playing better.”

WKU (19-8 overall, 8-5 CUSA) worked back into position to challenge for the win after falling behind by as many as 11 points in the second half.

Down eight at 72-64 after a 3-pointer by the Blue Raiders’ Jestin Porter, the Tops dashed off a 8-0 run to knot the score at 72-all with 2:18 to play.

MTSU (12-16, 6-7 CUSA) then turned the ball, but the Tops failed to convert on the other end and turned it right back over.

Porter hit one of two free throws with 1:48 to go to push the Blue Raiders ahead by a point. The Tops again came up empty on the ensuing possession, but Dontaie Allen’s steal gave them another opportunity. After a time out with 19 seconds to play, WKU junior point guard Don McHenry tried to drive into the paint for the go-ahead basket. Porter knocked the ball loose and came up with a steal with just three seconds to go.

MTSU’s Jared Coleman-Jones hit just one of two free throws with two seconds left, leaving the Tops with a slim chance – Porter snatched it away with another steal at midcourt.

The loss snapped a five-game win streak for the Hilltoppers, who struggled to make shots. WKU shot 37.3% from the field, but was only 5-of-20 (25%) from 3-point range.

“We didn’t play our best basketball at all,” WKU fifth-year forward Rodney Howard said. “We fought hard but we just didn’t play hard. We just couldn’t get the last basket. We had multiple opportunities where we could finish it. It shouldn’t boil down to a last basket. We should’ve never put ourselves in that position.”

WKU got off to a sluggish start, falling behind 22-10 in the first half and trailing most of the way. But the Tops chipped away and a 7-0 run to close out the half capped by a pair of made free throws by Enoch Kalambay was enough to give them a 36-34 halftime lead.

The Blue Raiders, who hit just 4-of-15 attempts from 3-point range in the first half, heated up in the second to knock down 6-of-13 shots from that range. Elias King did much of that second-half damage, scoring all 12 of his points on four 3-pointers in the game.

Jared-Coleman Jones notched a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds to pace MTSU. Porter added 19 points.

Brandon Newman led the Tops with 14 points. McHenry, Allen and Howard added 11 points each, and Babacar Faye scored 10 points.

WKU is back in action Wednesday, hosting Louisiana Tech in the final home game of the season. Tipoff is 7 p.m. with ESPN+ slated to broadcast.{&end}