The Western Kentucky women’s basketball team continues its role as the de facto ‘welcoming party’ for the newest members of Conference USA when it hosts Sam Houston at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday at E.A. Diddle Arena.

Wednesday’s game is a stretch of four games to open conference play against the four teams that joined the conference this season. WKU (10-6 overall, 1-0 Conference USA) opened conference play with a come-from-behind win at Liberty. After Wednesday’s game, the Lady Toppers will play at Jacksonville State on Saturday before hosting New Mexico State next week.

“In some ways it’s conference play, but it is also continuation of non-conference play because these are all new opponents to us,” WKU head coach Greg Collins said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of staying locked in, staying ready – keep getting prepared. Like we always talk about, keep chopping wood and keep getting ready for that next matchup.”

In Saturday’s 68-66 win at Liberty, WKU rallied from 15 down to earn the win – continuing a trend of rallying from big deficits that was a staple of last year’s run to the Conference USA championship game. WKU senior guard Destiny Salary said the team remains composed even when things aren’t going well.

“Whenever we lay that egg and we are far down, we never look at the score,” Salary said. “We never look at the time. We just got in that huddle and tell each other, ‘OK, let’s go. Now we’ve got to get these stops and now we’ve got to go score.’ We never really look at the score or get down about it.”

One of the keys to Saturday’s win was the ability to limit Liberty’s 6-foot-6 center Bella Smuda to six shots from the field. Collins said senior forward Odeth Betancourt was a big factor in limiting Smuda’s looks.

“That’s been a big area where we’ve tried to improve,” Collins said. “Odie was huge inside. She got a lot of hands on balls. She was unpredictable and that made it tough for Smuda to know where she was all the time. And then she did a good job on the boards.

“Caitlin Staley came in and gave us good minutes as well inside. Jaylin Brill didn’t do anything wrong. We just needed that physical size in that matchup, but it was really a team effort.”

Sam Houston (5-11, 0-1) doesn’t have the same size as Liberty, but does bring a defense that is averaging 24.7 turnovers forced per game. Sam Houston is averaging nearly 43 rebounds a game as a team with four players averaging more than 10 points a game.

“They are aggressive,” Collins said. “They force more turnovers than we do. They are going to get after us. They are going to press. They are going to be disruptive … and they are a great rebounding team.”

WKU will have a quick turnaround following Wednesday’s game, having to hit the road to play Jacksonville State – one of the rare two-game conference weeks that are split between a road game a home game.

“We’ve faced a few trips like this already in non-conference,” Collins said. “We’ve had short turnarounds. We had a stretch where we played Abilene Christian here, had to travel the next day and then had to play Nevada the next day and Missouri State the next day. We’ve done this a few times to try to prepare ourselves mentally and physically.

“We’ve got aches and pains like other teams. We’ve got some sickness. We’ve got all that stuff that we are working through, but I like the resiliency. I like the fight in this team.”