Western Kentucky

by **pafan** » March 5th, 2012, 11:19 pm

Western Kentucky, who began the season 4-9 in the non-conference portion of their season, will play North Texas for the automatic bid out of the Sun Belt league tomorrow night.

You may recall that Western Kentucky nailed SIU back in November, probably the game where the Lowery bandwagon really thinned out. WKU then proceeded to fire coach Ken McDonald on January 6 with a 5-11 mark for the season after an embarrassing game where WKU lost on a last-second power play for Louisiana Lafayette. The Hilltoppers named RIch Herrin interim head coach.

The same team that McDonald coached to 5-11 has now won 5 in a row and 6 of their last 7 under Herrin.

Has anyone been paying attention to the Tops? What happened with the coaching change to improve the team?

**Sponsor**

by **DOFO** » March 5th, 2012, 11:28 pm

I was certainly paying attention to it, would be a Cinderella story. Although, they have no chance to knock off the 1 seed or even win the play-in game. Thinking it would be like if SIU won the tournament this year.

by **uniftw** » March 6th, 2012, 8:01 am

pafan wrote:Western Kentucky, who began the season 4-9 in the non-conference portion of their season, will play North Texas for the automatic bid out of the Sun Belt league tomorrow night.

You may recall that Western Kentucky nailed SIU back in November, probably the game where the Lowery bandwagon really thinned out. WKU then proceeded to fire coach Ken McDonald on January 6 with a 5-11 mark for the season after an embarrassing game where WKU lost on a last-second power play for Louisiana Lafayette. The Hilltoppers named RIch Herrin interim head coach.

The same team that McDonald coached to 5-11 has now won 5 in a row and 6 of their last 7 under Herrin.

Has anyone been paying attention to the Tops? What happened with the coaching change to improve the team?

Without looking i'm going to guess it's because they went from playing "decent" OOC teams to playing teams in the Sun Belch.

Actually, just looked at realtimerpi...

They are currently 14-18 so they have been 2 games over .500 since that point, and to get to that point it took a streak of winning 6 of their last 7

win vs Florida Atlantic - RPI 205 (10-19) l
oss at Wouth Alabama - RPI 172 (16-12)
win vs. Arkansas St - RPI 221 (13-19),
win vs Middle Tenn St - RPI 59 (24-6...I'm going to assume MTSU just over looked them)
*start conference tourney*
win over FIU - RPI 249 (8-20)
win over UALR - RPI 176 (14-16)
win over Denver - RPI 80 (22-8...I'm going to put this on WKU actually have confience at this point)

Heck they were 4-11 in the games prior to this. This is more of team starts hitting shots late in the season and upsets up some teams. They were 11-18 heading into the conference tournament, but were 9-9 in conference play. I'd say their "success" has more to do with being in the SBC

by **Bball Junkie** » March 6th, 2012, 9:02 am

For clarification, the new WKU coch is Ray Harper. He won multiple national championships at the D2 level with Kentucy Wesleyan College and then an NAIA championship with Oklahoma City.

by **BirdmanBB** » March 6th, 2012, 9:34 am

Bball Junkie wrote:For clarification, the new WKU coch is Ray Harper. He won multiple national championships at the D2 level with Kentucy Wesleyan College and then an NAIA championship with Oklahoma City.

Did they hire someone mid season. I thought they just let one of the assistants step up as the interim.

by **Aces44** » March 6th, 2012, 12:02 pm

Ray Harper has been the top assistant there for awhile, and took over when McDonald got fired.
He has won before, and is proving it again.

I always wonder why WKU isn't considered more often when the "who should we add" threads start.

by **2livewu** » March 6th, 2012, 12:08 pm

Because we've already added Evansville and UNI.

by **unipanther99** » March 6th, 2012, 12:50 pm

Aces44 wrote:Ray Harper has been the top assistant there for awhile, and took over when McDonald got fired.
He has won before, and is proving it again.

I always wonder why WKU isn't considered more often when the "who should we add" threads start.

They play FBS football. Same situation as Tulsa.

by **pafan** » March 6th, 2012, 5:38 pm

Aces44 wrote:Ray Harper has been the top assistant there for awhile, and took over when McDonald got fired.

Yeah. Ray Harper. Not Rich Herrin. Wasn't he a coach at SIU decades ago? :buddies:

by **pafan** » March 6th, 2012, 8:03 pm

WKU Toppers win 74-70; will get to NCAAs after second half comeback.

:Beer:

Does this eat an At-Large from someone else? Middle Tennessee might earn an at large -- very much on the bubble.