Western Kentucky is 'In A Storm'
Bowling Green – The traveling Mean Green fans, about ten in total, were nervous. Surely, the Tops couldn’t lose three league games in a row? As North Texas jumped out to a 19-point first half lead, the crowd became antsy. The suggestions were frustrated attempts to help correct the ship. “Follow your shot, Frampton!” said one court-side.
The Tops started slowly, fought back with great effort, and lost. NT’s coach Grant McCasland said “They gave as good an effort as I’ve seen from them defensively.”
Tops assistant coach Phil Cunningham is filling in for head coach Stansbury, who is out with a health matter said, “These guys are fighting,” Cunningham said. “We’re in a storm right now. We’re coming out of the storm because we’ve got the right DNA in that locker room. I don’t know when, I hope it’s Saturday, but we’re coming out of the storm.”
“We knew they would make a run and they did” said North Texas’ Tylor Perry “but in the end we ended up coming out with a win.”
The roster is top-heavy, with nary a bench to speak of. That is part of why the second-half troubles against Middle and Rice came about. Grant McCasland said that issue was part of the NT attack plan. “We worked hard, involving a lot of people. We felt like this game we needed provide multiple ball screens with multiple players in order to create confusion and also to wear them down because we knew they had a limited number of players tonight.”
WKU rallied, and showed their quality, however. Dayton McKnight turned it up and poured in 29. The desperation jumpers came up just short in the final minutes, however. Is that legs? Is that just circumstance? Is that just the ‘storm’?
Next up is UTSA, a poor team but one that just jumped up and bit a pre-season favorite in Middle.
Scores
NT 70 WKU 66
Tylor Perry scored 22 as North Texas jumped out to a big lead and held on late to bury a rally in Diddle. Grant McCasland is now 4-4 against WKU, the first NT coach to do that against Western. NT and Western were both in the Sun Belt before joining CUSA.
Middle 72 UTSA 75
Tech 88 Rice 82
Tech has fallen to the middle of the pack in the advanced numbers under Talvin Hester, but Cobe Williams is still good. He had 18 in this OT win.
UAB 86 FAU 88
The Owl’s Johnell Davis jumped up and put in 36 points. He averages 9 a game. This matchup between two of the league’s absolute best squads was entertaining and left the reigning champs as the loser. FAU is for real.
CLT 60 FIU 62
Right when we are ready to praise the 9ers for their solid play they drop this one on the road to FIU.
Saturday’s games:
- CLT at FAU
Trap game for FAU. Solid CLT team coming to town after big, emotional win vs UAB
- UTEP at La Tech
Miners are rested, Tech is in rhythm.
- WKU at UTSA
Western in a must-win game?
- NT at Middle
Coach Mac: “We have to be able to score against their pros”
- UAB at FIU
Trap game. FIU can score and likes their tempo, UAB likes to run but got sloppy late vs FAU.