Was Western Kentucky’s defensive effort against Middle Tennessee the best it’s been all season?

“Definitely,” Lady Toppers coach Michelle Clark-Heard said following her team’s 57-43 win against Middle Tennessee on Thursday night. “I’m really proud that they took the challenge. They were only averaging 58 points, and I talked to them about holding them to a certain amount of points.”

Can it get better? Heard believes it can.

WKU will have a chance to string together back-to-back defensive clinics when it hosts Southern Mississippi at 2 p.m. Saturday at E.A. Diddle Arena.

The Lady Toppers (10-4 overall, 1-0 Conference USA) started the C-USA slate on a dominant note by limiting Middle Tennessee to two field goals in the first half and 32.5 percent clip from the floor all night – a number that drastically improved with the Lady Raiders shooting 7-of-15 (.467) in the fourth quarter when the game was well in WKU’s control.

WKU learned offense can take a night off so long as the defense shows up. The Lady Toppers entered Thursday leading the league in offense at 77.8 points per game, but stepped up its defense, currently ranked ninth in C-USA, by limiting MTSU’s open shot opportunities.

“Pretty much all week we take pride in just guarding and that’s what our main focus has been lately,” senior Tashia Brown said. “I think we went out and just executed everything on the floor and got some stops and came up successful.”

Hard as it is to believe WKU could play better defense, the head coach certainly wants to see more.

“Yes, we can be better, I really believe that,” Heard said. “But I believe this is at the top of the ladder where we’ve been in a long time. Now the challenge for us is every single game to get better and do some of the things where instead of leaving three shooters open, we go for not leaving anyone open. It can get better.

“Saturday’s game, we’ll have to take care of the ball because they’re going to press and switch up defenses and do a lot of different things so we’ll have to take care of the basketball.”

Saturday’s tilt against Southern Miss (8-6, 0-1) is a rematch of last year’s C-USA Tournament championship game that ended with WKU’s second league title in three seasons. The Lady Eagles started off their conference slate with a 66-56 loss at Charlotte on Thursday night.

Redshirt senior Jayla King (15.5 ppg) earned her sixth double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Megan Brown (11.1 ppg) led all scorers with a career-high 20 points in the loss at Charlotte.

The Lady Eagles’ signature press defense hasn’t given WKU issues recently with three straight wins, the last two coming by double digits. Heard noted that MTSU’s defensive game plan challenged the Lady Toppers with multiple traps instead of switches like most teams have done all season.

However, it did lead to WKU’s lowest point production all season. Tashia Brown saw her Division I-leading nine-game 20-point streak come to an end with 17 points against MTSU.

The Lady Toppers’ 33.9 percent shooting night was its lowest since shooting 29.7 percent against Notre Dame.

“We know how people are going to guard,” Heard said. “They’re going to guard Tashia and especially Tashia when she’s on the perimeter.

“We run our ball screen stuff and they trapped us tonight when we first started. First team that’s trapped us and normally everyone switches. We’ll be better and prepared. We weren’t shooting the ball great.”

– Follow sports reporter Elliott Pratt on Twitter @EPrattBGDN or visit bgdailynews.com.