Jim Mashek

INJURIES CRIPPLED PLONA’s FIRST HILLTOPPERS SQUAD, BUT LACK OF FOCUS WAS EVIDENT DOWN THE STRETCH

Eight days ago, Western Kentucky University men’s basketball team squared off against Liberty University in its regular-season finale at WKU’s historic E.A. Diddle Arena.

And in no time flat — well, almost — the Hilltoppers were history against the hot-shooting Flames, who hit 16 of 34 shots from 3-point range to bury WKU, 90-61, before a paid crowd of 4,247.

And it could have been worse.

There wasn’t a mass exodus of fans, like there had been one week earlier, in a listless 78-62 loss to Sam Houston State. But there was a sense of sheer frustration, to be sure, on the WKU bench, across the arena, and into the Hilltoppers’ collective psyche.

The Conference USA Tournament in Huntsville, Alabama, was beckoning as the Last-Chance Saloon for Hank Plona’s first run as the Hilltoppers’ head coach. Plona moved one seat over after Steve Lutz’s departure for Oklahoma State, after the school’s first C-USA basketball championship, and plenty of talent was returning for the 2024-25 season.

And a lot of that talent never got on the floor.

Injuries contributed mightily to the Hilltoppers’ subpar 17-15 season, none of them more critical than senior forward Babacar Faye being sidelined with a right knee injury in an overtime victory over traditional rival Murray State University in mid-December.

Teagan Moore, a WKU swingman who had a productive freshman season last year, never got on the court for the Hilltoppers, after undergoing meniscus surgery. Likewise, incoming freshman Kade Unseld, who had been a star at Warren Central High School. He was just one of those tall fellas at the end of the WKU bench, in civvies instead of his Hilltopper uniform, working through offseason knee surgery of his own.

Freshman guard Julius Thedford sustained a disclocated right kneecap in mid-January, in a loss at Middle Tennessee State, and try as he might to return, he was left to rehab that injury, while the Hilltoppers lost seven of their last 10 games, three of them in lopsided fashion.

But it was the Liberty loss, to Conference USA’s eventual regular-season AND tournament champion, that left the Tops out of sorts, and before long, out of time.

Florida International University, with a 3-15 regular-season record against C-USA competition, stopped the Hilltoppers 76-67 at Huntsville’s Probst Arena. WKU didn’t hit a single 3-point field goal until the final minute, when Don McHenry’s four-point play — a rushed 3, followed by a foul shot, from straight away — gave the Tops a glimmer of hope.

But the Golden Panthers held on to win. And Plona, who coached McHenry and WKU sixth man Enoch Kalambay at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa, had to look past the dismal finish and turn his focus toward retooling the Hilltoppers for the 2025-26 season.

(Kalambay also missed some games late in the season, for unspecified reasons, but was welcomed back for the final three games.)

“The purpose of bringing (the bulk of the 2023-24 team) back was to try to get back to the NCAA Tournament,” Plona said Tuesday after the disappointing loss to FIU in Huntsville. “And I think that kind of weighed on us, all year, especially as the injuries depleted our depth a little bit.”

The Hilltoppers looked like they might be that sort of squad in the first month or so of the season, but that all changed when Babacar Faye, the rangy 6-foot-8 senior forward from Senegal, was injured against Murray State.

Faye was averaging 15.2 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds per game when he was injured, and his presence gave Plona the kind of versatility they needed on the front line. Don McHenry led the team in scoring, for the second consecutive season, but if he was having an off night, the Tops were seldom in position to pick up the slack.

Senior WKU guard Khristian Lander missed a handful of games in the stretch run of the season with a back injury. Lander and senior forward Tyrone Marshall Jr. were holdovers from the all-too-forgettable Rick Stansbury Era, and they both had their moments as the Hilltoppers endured one setback after another, including Jack Edelen’s DUI arrest, and in the end, it was too much to overcome.

“We had a year full of ups and downs,” Plona said, “and there’s been a lot of obstacles in the way. A lot of challenges.”

Playing in constantly changing Conference USA, which spans eight states and THREE time zones, is one of those obstacles. And it’s a significant one. But that’s the hand the Hilltoppers have been dealt, and that’s the hand they’ll have to negotiate in the future.

Getting back to the NCAA Tournament after an 11-year absence was a big deal at WKU, and the Tops were a game opponent for second-seeded Marquette in last year’s first-round NCAA game in Indianapolis. Oklahoma State finished 14th in the 16-team Big 12 in Year One under Steve Lutz in Stillwater, posting a 15-17 season with a lopsided loss to Cincinnati in its conference tournament.

It was the loss to Liberty, however, that encapsulated the Hilltoppers’ uninspiring 17-15 season. WKU had already beaten that team in January, in Lynchburg, Virginia, by a single point, but the Tops were lost on defense, uneven on offense, and just plain embarrassed. Liberty’s men’s and women’s teams are on their way to the NCAA Tournament after victories on the same day in the C-USA Tournament on Saturday.

Four Liberty players — forwards Zach Cleveland and Jay Maughmer and guards Taeolon Peter and Brett Decker — accounted for 69 of the Flames’ 90 points, and for two hours, WKU’s historic E.A. Diddle Arena was somebody else’s domain.

That’s what Hank Plona has to get back.

In this NCAA Transfer Portal/NIL/player free agency era, you’ve got to think next year’s WKU roster is going to look a lot different.

Time for the Hilltoppers coaches to get to work. Gotta put a different sort of roster together for 2025-26.