Topper Preview

So, the Battle of Bowling Green resumes tomorrow night, as the Falcons play the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, a team which hails from Bowling Green KY and the people who have been getting our mail all these years.  This used to be a huge rivalry, when Harold Anderson and EA "Red" Diddle had some legendary duels.  In fact, for a while anyway both schools have their arena named for these coaches.

The trademark for the Hilltoppers is to wave a red towel.  They are known informally as the Toppers.

Which means that our opponents are the Toppers and their hero is Red Diddle.  

Admit it.  You laughed.

So, what can we expect from the Hilltoppers?  They are 3-5, but that's against a really good schedule.  They beat St. Joe by 28 in Philly and Hofstra in Puerto Rico (both nice wins) and got a win over Alabama A&M (a team with an RPI about where ours is).  Meanwhile, they have lost to Minnesota and Davidson in PR, South Carolina, @Vanderbilt and @Memphis...which are all teams at least in the top half of D1 this year.

They are an upbeat team.  At 77 possessions per game, they play at the 17th highest pace in D1 hoops.  This team plays even faster than Duquesne does, and we saw what happened there.

They are a strong team on the attack, scoring .94 points per possession.  They are not so good on defense, and allow .97 points per possession on that end.  A summary of how they compare to the Falcons is listed below.

NCAA Basketball Stats

Note that WKU generated those stats against the #49 schedule and BG's is ranked around 300.

The Top Toppers are Juan Patillo who is averaging a double-double and has had 5 this year, and Steffphon Pettigrew (13.9 ppg) and Serio Kerusch (13.4 ppg/6.9 rpg).  They only have one big man who is eligible, and that's Cliff Dixon, who is 6'10" and playing 21 semi-productive minutes a game.

This team was 21-13 last season and did not get a post-season bid.   Still, this is a very tough test for us. We will see if we are playing better.  When Davidson "held" them to 63 possessions, and they were able to beat the Toppers, so we're going to have to do some tempo control, I would think.   

The other things?  We need to play very good defense, especially in transition, take care of the ball, and it might not kill us to hit a few shots.  The local press in BG KY has been bemoaning the turnovers in the last two games.  Given their tempo, their TO% is pretty reasonable, but it has been high the last couple of games.  So, if we picked up some possessions that way, it would be a good thing.

If we keep the tempo down, make some shots, and hit some FTs, we might have a shot.  On paper, WKU is a clear favorite.  It would certainly be nice to see our improving team pick up a win for their efforts.