It’s a long road to victory, and for the Lady Toppers, it was 100 miles of hate.
After a season of struggling, it seems that WKU Women’s Basketball truly found a good rhythm against its rival Middle Tennessee State University, in a 70-65 win.
These past two games, WKU has looked like a whole different team. The loss against Kennesaw State showed the first signs of a resurgence. Flashes of greatness sparked on the court against the Owls, but they ultimately couldn’t amount to anything bigger.
Against Jax State, WKU played with fire and life. Something new was brewing.
Going into the game against MTSU, the Lady Toppers were the underdogs. The Blue Raiders are ranked fourth in Conference USA and blew out WKU earlier this year. This game looked like a slim chance of victory for the Lady Toppers.
Despite all of that, the team emerged like a red and white phoenix from the belly of Diddle Arena. The old team was gone.
From the ashes emerged a different team that fought through the Blue Raiders to pick up another victory.
The Lady Toppers played a menacing defensive game, totaling eight steals and blocks. The team also forced its opponent into difficult offensive positions, which led the Blue Raiders to 36% field goal shooting.
Through defensive power and offensive cohesion, WKU outscored MTSU in the paint and on the perimeter.
Despite both having 13 turnovers, WKU scored 19 points off turnovers, seven more than MTSU’s 12.
Sophomore guard Salma Khedr proved herself as the team’s key scoring threat by putting up 20 points. Fellow sophomore guard Trinity Rowe’s 18 points and six assists continued to demonstrate her skills as a strong facilitator and offensive threat.
It wasn’t all good, though. Like all teams, there’s room for the Lady Toppers to improve. Specifically, the team’s performance in the fourth quarter left much to be desired.
During the final 10 minutes of the game, WKU allowed MTSU to score 27 points while scoring only 15 themselves. While the victory was nice, it could’ve been even more decisive if WKU hadn’t let off the gas pedal in the final hour.
Even still, the Lady Toppers’ current position is much stronger than anyone anticipated two weeks ago.
With another win under its belt, WKU seems in a much better position to forge itself a path to the CUSA tournament.
Currently, the Lady Toppers have two opponents to worry about. The two teams tied for 11th in CUSA: UTEP and New Mexico State University. If the team can beat these two, it can secure a spot in the conference tournament.
This means that WKU has to pick up at least one win in some of its upcoming games. The Delaware Blue Hens, Liberty Flames, Missouri State Lady Bears and Florida International Panthers stand in the way of the Lady Toppers. One of them will have to fall for WKU to have a chance.
The games against Delaware and Liberty are both away games, and picking up a win on the road would be huge for this team. It would prove not only that this is a different team than earlier in the season, but also that this team has a chance.
Delaware is what I would call a must-win game.
Of the two upcoming road games, Delaware seems like the perfect place to grab a road win. The Blue Hens are ranked eighth in CUSA, two places lower than the Flames.
On top of that, extending the team’s win streak to three gives WKU even more momentum to challenge Liberty.
Missouri State is another game I would label as a must-win. So long as the Lady Toppers pull out wins against Delaware and Missouri State, the team will have five wins under its belt. That would put them in contention for the CUSA tournament.
UTEP and NMSU are the two teams tied for 11th, meaning that the Lady Toppers will need to pass both of them in the standings to make the tournament. Luckily for WKU, their schedules leave much to be desired. Both teams have to play the higher-ranked Jax State, Kennesaw State, LA Tech and Sam Houston.
LA Tech is ranked number one in the conference, so I’ll rule out either team getting a win there. Third-ranked Sam Houston isn’t likely to be a great game for UTEP or NMSU, but it’s worth mentioning that NMSU did beat Sam Houston earlier this season.
There is a big difference between these games’ home court advantage. NMSU’s win against Sam Houston was on its home court, and now the team has to play in Sam Houston’s arena. That spells trouble for the Aggies.
Both teams have already played seventh-ranked Jax State and lost by double digits, so that’s likely to be a loss.
The team UTEP and NMSU are most likely to beat is Kennesaw State, which is ranked ninth. It’s the lowest-ranked team left to be played, but both teams lost to Kennesaw by double digits.
So, as long as UTEP and NMSU lose out their seasons, the Lady Toppers only need to pull out two more wins to cement their place in the CUSA Tournament.
