HAD 22 POINTS ON 7-of-16 SHOOTING.
McKNIGHT’s 29 POINTS NOT ENOUGH IN LOSS TO MEAN GREEN
It unraveled, in a matter of mere minutes.
Turnovers. Bad shots. Missed assignments. Poor rebounding.
Western Kentucky University’s promising men’s basketball season — a campaign bolstered by the return of mainstays Dayvion McKnight and Jamarion Sharp from the NCAA’s Transfer Portal — is taking shape as a monumental letdown.
North Texas, the Conference USA squad that beat Rick Stansbury’s Hilltoppers in the C-USA Tournament title game just two years ago, arrived in Bowling Green as a team on a mission.
North Texas likes to milk the shot clock, find the open man at the 3-point line, and hit the boards like nobody’s business when it matters.
LED ALL SCORERS WITH 29 POINTS.
It mattered for Western Kentucky, late Thursday night.
It mattered a lot.
Playing for the third consecutive game without seventh-year head coach Rick Stansbury, who is sidelined with an illness.
Playing before thinning crowds at E.A. Diddle Arena.
NORTH TEXAS PLAYERS TO HIT
A 3-POINTER THURSDAY NIGHT.
Playing themselves into a corner, into a fifth consecutive defeat.
North Texas turned back a late challenge from the Hilltoppers, knocking off WKU 70-66 on Thursday night at Diddle Arena.
North Texas used a deliberate offense, deft 3-point shooting and a solid defensive effort to torpedo the Hilltoppers’ comeback bid.
A GAME-HIGH 29 POINTS.
IT WOULDN’T BE ENOUGH.
“Our offensive efficiency was good for most of the game,” North Texas coach Grant McAsland said.
Good for the Mean Green, bad for the ‘Toppers.
“We’ve just got to find a way to win a game,” WKU associate head coach Phil Cunningham said.
North Texas outplayed, outhustled and outlasted the Hilltoppers, who fell behind 21-2 in the game’s first nine minutes or so.
A BIG BREAK WHEN OFFICIALS CALLED
THIS FOUL ON WKU’s LUKE FRAMPTON.
SCORED A TEAM-HIGH 22 POINTS.
Davyion McKnight, the Hilltoppers’ tough-as-nails leader, pretty much got Western back in the game by himself.
With valuable sixth man Jordan Rawls sidelined with a hand injury, compounded by Stansbury’s absence approaching two weeks, the Hilltoppers seem like a lost team.
Playing before thinning crowds at Diddle Arena.
Unless things change quickly, and drastically, playing out the string for a season with considerable promise beforehand.’
“We’ve just got to keep working hard,” McKnight said when it was over.
AND DAYVION McKNIGHT.
That’ll be a big step, but the Hilltoppers are going to need a lot more.
They’ll need better shot selection.
Better rebounding.
Better defense, against the 3-point shot.
Better rebounding.
North Texas outrebounded the Hilltoppers 26-9 in the first half, when the Mean Green were building a double-digit lead and keeping it until the final moments before halftime.
North Texas finished with a 40-26 rebounding edge on the night.
REBOUNDING EDGE IN THE FIRST HALF.
Western got back in the game, slowly but surely, and the Hilltoppers were a defensive stop or two away from giving themselves a legitimate shot at a comeback victory.
But Cunningham, scrambling to get the Hilltoppers back in the game, went primarily with a small lineup, with the shot-blocking skills of 7-foot-5 senior Jamarion Sharp rendered idle because of the circumstances.
Sharp is basically a one-dimensional player, on the defensive end of the floor, but his presence can alter an opponent’s offensive approach, sending them back to the perimeter and out of his reach.
THEIR WAY BACK INTO THE GAME.
North Texas wanted to go there, regardless.
The Mean Green unleashed a deliberate, 3-point-centric offense that capitalized on the Hilltoppers’ defensive lapses.
Of which there were plenty, especially with Sharp on the floor for just eight minutes and change, after halftime.
“Our game plan,” Cunningham said, “we felt like you’ve got to drive against their pressure. And we’re not built to drive.”
No, they’re built to find open 3-point shots, which was the difference Thursday night.
For the Mean Green.
ALL FOR NORTH TExAS.
North Texas hit 11 of 26 shots from 3-point land, with junior guard Tylor Perry leading the way with 22 points, four rebounds and four assists.
Western, as a team, had six assists for the entire game.
Dayvion McKnight basically willed the Hilltoppers back into the game, driving to the basket and getting to the free-throw line.
When you’re in a perpetual comeback mode, it’s easiest to score with the clock stopped.
The Hilltoppers were 25 of 30 from the line, a strong showing that helped them keep it close in the last four or five minutes.
Not enough to get them over the top.
“We were going to drive it and move it and drive it,” Cunningham said. “And they did a good job of keeping us keeping us out of the paint.”
Defensively, the Hilltoppers are obviously a better team with Jamarion Sharp under the basket.
Not watching from the bench.
Sharp played 36 minutes, 44 seconds in last week’s 81-78 loss to Rice University, a season high. But the Owls scored a staggering 55 points in the second half, when Rice was more efficient (14 for 34, or 42 percent, from 3-point range) than the Hilltoppers (7 of 20, or 35 percent).
A similar development unfolded in the North Texas game, as the Mean Green’s Jayden Martinez — a 6-foot-7 reserve forward — hit two 3-pointers in the first half, scoring all of his eight points before the half.
“That start ultimately doomed us,” WKU associate head coach Phil Cunningham said.
WITH OFFICIALS BEFORE THE GAME.
After last year’s disappointing 19-13 finish, WKU teammates Dayvion McKnight and Jamarion Sharp chose to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal.
The Hilltoppers had been bounced in their first game of the C-USA Tournament, a 59-57 loss to Louisiana Tech, one year after losing in the championship game to North Texas.
They’ve yet to reach the NCAA Tournament under Rick Stansbury, the seventh-year head coach who took Mississippi State to the NCAA tourney six teams — including four in a row, from 2002 until 2005.
They’re running out of time.
13 OF 16 FREE THROWS.
Cunningham was quick to remind us that “it’s a long season,” but the season is taking definitive shape.
At this point, Stansbury, Cunningham and the other WKU coaches have to find a way to stop the bleeding.
A loss to Texas-San Antonio on Saturday at UTSA’s Convocation Center would mean Western will have gone an entire month without a single victory.
In addition to extending the Hilltoppers’ losing streak to six games.
“It’s a bottom-line business,” Cunningham said. “Our guys know there’s no moral victories around here.”
Phil Cunningham understands. He spent six seasons as the head coach at Troy University, after an extensive stint as Stansbury’s lead assistant at Mississippi State.
“THESE GUYS ARE FIGHTERS.”
“These guys are fighters,” Cunningham said. “They’re in a storm right now … We’re coming out of that storm …
“That’s the kind of DNA they have.”
Maybe these back-to-back games on the road — at UTSA on Saturday, and then UAB next Thursday — will give the Tops a chance to re-invent themselves.
That’s the only way they can change the narrative on the 2022-23 season.
TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO ON SATURDAY.
A GAME SINCE DECEMBER 10.
ROUGHLY 20 MINUTES ON THE COURT …
PROFESSIONAL LOGROLLER IN ANOTHER LIFE.