Jim Mashek

SECOND-YEAR WKU HEAD COACH IS QUICK TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE OBVIOUS; TOPS (3-0) PLAY HOST TO BETHEL (TENNESSEE) ON TUESDAY NIGHT

Western Kentucky’s second-year men’s basketball head coach, the hard-driving Hank Plona, has put together an interesting non-conference schedule before the Hilltoppers begin tangling with Conference USA opponents, starting with a road trip to Jacksonville State in late December.

Plona, a personable but passionate coach, was ultrasuccessful at the JUCO level and he has a blueprint in mind for the 2025-26 WKU basketball squad.

This plan comes a few months removed from a lackluster 17-15 season — at least by Hilltopper standards — before the Tops venture to Paradise Island, in The Bahamas, for the prestigious eight-team affair known as the Battle of Atlantis Tournament.

Starting with a high-profile matchup with Vanderbilt University, a talented team on Broadway that has opened the season with four consecutive non-conference victories. The other two opponents will be determined by tournament results.

On either side of that trip to Paradise, WKU basketball fans will have to grin and bear it through non-conference dates with the likes of Bethel (Tennessee) University, Evansville University and Campbellsville University, a faith-based institution located in the city of the same name.

When the Hilltoppers get to the Bahamas, then the evaluation process will accelerate.

Like somebody tryin’ to beat the traffic on Russellville Road a little after 4 p.m. on weekdays, when the most of the factories nearby send the majority of their employees home for the night.

“As a basketball team, we’re going to be exposed … as to who we are,” Plona told the media after Sunday afternoon’s 95-82 thumping of Tennessee State University before a paid crowd of 2,845 at WKU’s historic E.A. Diddle Arena.

In the meantime, the Hilltoppers will be squaring off with opponents such as the Bethel University Wildcats, an NAIA school based in McKenzie, Tennessee.

On the plus side, of course, the WKU promtions department will be staging its Corgi Race, on the floor at Diddle, and I’m told there’s some interns who will be on hand to, uh, wipe the slate clean should their be an accident when the Hilltoppers and Wildcats are in their respective locker rooms at halftime.

That sort of fun alone should attract a decent crowd on a Tuesday night in mid-November. The WKU football team is on the road on Saturday night, at fabled Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, with a shot at playing giant killer against the LSU Tigers (6-4, 3-4 in the Southeastern Conference).

(Then, WKU football coach Tyson Helton’s Hilltopper squad will hit the road again, this time for Jacksonville State, in NASCAR country, for a game that could very well determine the two qualifiers for the Conference USA championship game in December.)

Heady stuff on The Hill, to be sure.

Anyway, WKU’s Hank Plona admits the Hilltoppers’ non-conference schedule is a little unusual, and he isn’t the type to complain about top-flight mid-major schools avoiding DIddle Arena like the plague, or any other such scheduling inconvenience.

You play who’s next on your docket, and in WKU’s case, you look to build on your 3-0 record with a home game against the Bethel Corgis, uh, I mean, Bethel Wildcats.

“We have to play the game in front of us,” Plona said after the Tennessee State game on Sunday.

Plona had plenty to be pleased about, after vanquishing the Tigers based in Nashville, along the Cumberland River but far enough from the downtown nightmare only exacerbated by the ridiculous indoor stadium being built for one of the NFL’s sorriest organizations, the Tennessee Titans.

“Yeah, we’re 1-9, but at least we ain’t winless …”

I’m told the Hilltoppers finished that game with eight or nine dunks, but I couldn’t say on account of the fact that I got to Diddle with about five minutes left in the first half.

The truth of it is these Hilltoppers have size, they have depth, and they’re going to take it to the rack.

Repeatedly, if need be.

“We have the ability to get the ball to the guys in the paint,” Plona said.

Plona has a rebuilt team with plenty of seasoned players who arrived via the NCAA Transfer Portal, grizzled vets like Bryant Selabangue, a native of Montreal, Quebec who had 12 points and four rebounds in the Tops’ efficient victory over TSU.

He’s got Grant Newell, a 6-foot-9, 220-pound forward from Chicago who played last season at North Texas, and senior center Blaise Keita, a 6-foot-11, 250-pound holdover from the 2024-25 team that was bounced from the Conference USA Tournament in the first round.

After Liberty University rolled into Diddle Arena and dropped a 90-61 beating on the Hilltoppers’ collective psyche.

No, so far, you have to like what you see, in the grit of these Hilltoppers. They’re not going to back down from anybody. The Tops may struggle from 3-point range, but they’ve got dudes who can drive to the basket and hit the boards and even scrap for some loose balls.

Western Kentucky finished the game with 62 points in the paint, compared to 24 for the visitors from Nashville. It was 32-12, in favor of the Hilltoppers, in the first half.

“It’s a step in the right direction for this team,” Plona said.

And the Hilltoppers have welcomed back Teagan Moore, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound swingman from Dry Ridge, Kentucky, a versatile redshirt sophomore who missed the entire 2024-25 season after hip surgery.

Moore and the Tops were willing to listen to Hank Plona’s instructions before taking the floor against Tennessee State. And Moore would finish the game with a team-high 20 points, on 7-for-9 shooting, along with five rebounds and several hustle plays in roughly 27 minutes on the court.

“Coach Hank kept telling us the rim would be open,” Moore said afterward. “I just tried to get in the middle (around the lane) and get to my spots …

“Getting to my spots, where I have the advantage on offense.”

There’s plenty of unknowns with this WKU team, such as former Warren Central star Kade Unseld’s return from knee surgery that kept him on the sidelines for the 2024-25 season, and looking for the right combinations in the backcourt, with quick, capable athletes such as Terrion Murdix, L.J. Hackman and Cam Haffner.

It’s just gonna take some time for Hank Plona and the Hilltoppers to truly carve out their identity, before they scrap with the likes of Liberty, Delaware and those pesky Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

“It seems like we weren’t shooting the ball from 3 very well,” Plona said, “and I don’t know if we were guarding it very well, either … There’s obviously some things that we did pretty well, as far as toughness and attacking the basket and then sharing the ball and playing together …”

That sounds like a pretty strong building block to me.

Now, bring on the Corgis … oops, I mean, the Bethel Wildcats.