Western Kentucky will be without Keith Williams and Zion Harmon this season.

Williams, who transferred to WKU from Cincinnati in the offseason, had his appeal for eligibility denied by the NCAA and Harmon is not enrolled this semester because of personal reasons, head coach Rick Stansbury told the Daily News on Tuesday.

Neither had played this season for the Hilltoppers (10-7 overall, 2-2 Conference USA).

The 6-foot-5, 215-pound Williams is coming off a season with the Bearcats in which he started 22 of 23 games and averaged a team-high 14.3 points on 39.8% (113-of-284) shooting from the field, 31.3% (25-of-80) shooting from 3-point range and 65.3% (79-of-121) shooting from the free-throw line. He also brought down 4.1 rebounds, dished out 2.5 assists and recorded 1.2 steals in 27.4 minutes per game as a senior. He was named an AAC second team honoree and named to the NABC All-District 24 Second Team.

Williams started 83 of a possible 121 games over his Cincinnati career, averaging 9.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 22.5 minutes. He finished 35th on Cincinnati’s all-time scoring list with 1,156 career points. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native helped lead the Bearcats to AAC Tournament titles and NCAA Tournament appearances in 2018 and 2019, and to two AAC regular-season titles in 2018 and 2020.

Following the season, Williams announced April 29 via Twitter that he would be entering the 2021 NBA Draft and signing with an agent, but later changed his decision and two months later entered the transfer portal. Stansbury said after a Nov. 1 exhibition with Campbellsville that Williams’ eligibility had to do with declaring for the draft and “some paperwork involved with that.”

“Keith Williams, his appeal has been denied and he will be ineligible,” Stansbury told the Daily News on Tuesday. “We’re highly disappointed in the decision from the NCAA, not just for us but for the kid. Keith’s been a terrific young man. He’s worked hard this fall and stayed engaged. His situation – there’s been other kids very similar who were ruled eligible and we don’t understand how they came to this decision, but there’s no more appeals possible. This is where it is. I hate it for the young man as much as us.

“He was a terrific player. There’s no doubt he could’ve helped us in all areas. It says a lot about who he is as a person to hang in here and continue to fight through all of this when he had his college degree already and he didn’t have to, but he did well in school and he worked hard and he was ready to go for us. I hate it for everybody, most importantly for him.”

Harmon was a true freshman out of Marshall County High School, where he averaged 22.3 points per game in a senior season that was shortened due to injury. Harmon was a consensus four-star recruit and a top-50 prospect in the country by ESPN. The 5-foot-11, 170-pound guard won a KHSAA state title with Bowling Green as an eighth grader in 2017.

“Zion is not enrolled this semester for personal reasons,” Stansbury said. “We continue to support and help in any way that we can.”

The Hilltoppers are scheduled to play at Florida Atlantic on Thursday before a trip to Florida International on Saturday.{&end}