‘It felt like 20,000 fans in there.’ WKU rallies to top EKU in ‘Battle of the Bluegrass.’
A key second-half defensive adjustment helped Western Kentucky University reel in a high-octane Eastern Kentucky University offense to power the Hilltoppers to a season-opening 66-60 comeback win in a rowdy road environment on Thursday night.
About five minutes into the second half of college basketball’s “Battle of the Bluegrass,” the Colonels were trying to sustain an eight-point lead that they built with strong three-point shooting and tireless rebounding. The WKU coaching staff decided to switch its team into a 1-3-1, half-court trap on defense, hoping to slow down the pace of an EKU squad that was “in rhythm,” said Rick Stansbury, the Hilltoppers’ head coach.
“Once we went to that, it changed the flow of that game,” Stansbury said.
Over the next five minutes, WKU outscored its cross-state rival 15-5 and grabbed its first lead of the second half with about 10 minutes left to play.
“The game is about runs and emotion,” Stansbury said, noting that EKU had “those emotional runs in the first half.” In the second half, the Colonels shot 29% from the field while WKU shot 56%. “We were better there,” Stansbury said.
The Hilltoppers were never able to completely put EKU away. But the Colonels missed a series of free throws in the final minutes, dashing any upset hopes and silencing an at-times, ear-splitting crowd at Richmond’s Baptist Health Arena. The 6,303 spectators in attendance was the arena’s largest crowd since 2004.
“It felt like 20,000 fans in there,” said A.W. Hamilton, EKU’s head coach. “It felt like the entire city of Richmond and county of Madison was behind us.”
The Colonels — who were third in the nation in three-pointers made per game last season — shot 43.8% from deep in the first half, knocking down seven threes. With the WKU defense giving it fits in the second, EKU was 3-for-15 from beyond the arc.
“We got young guards, you know, we had a nice lead, we had a lot of rhythm, we had a lot of flow,” Hamilton said. “They went to their 1-3-1 and it really bothered us.”
Junior wing Devontae Blanton, a key playmaker for the Colonels, also began dealing with cramps making it even harder for EKU to maintain its lead, Hamilton said.
Meanwhile, WKU senior guard Luke Frampton started cooking, scoring 13 points in the second half. Frampton led all scorers, totaling 21 points in the contest with five made three-point shots.
“I was just taking open shots, taking what they were giving me,” Frampton said. “I didn’t really force anything. I was just shooting open shots, and credit my teammates for setting screens and getting me open.”
Cooper Robb led all Colonels in scoring with 11 points. The former Scott County Cardinal also added seven rebounds. Michael Moreno, Robb’s teammate at Scott County and now the Colonels’ leading scorer, was impressive in the first half, hitting three triples to get nine of his 10 total points in the game. Moreno was largely kept in check after halftime.
However, EKU was dominant in the rebound column for the full 40 minutes, winning the board battle 44-36. Outworking WKU on the glass is no easy task as the Hilltoppers have the 7-foot-5 Jamarion Sharp, the tallest player in college basketball, waiting beneath the rim.
However, the 6-foot-7 Isaiah Cozart — a Richmond native and former Madison Central star who transferred to EKU after spending three seasons at WKU — was up to the task against his former team, grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds.
“It was a great experience there to play against them and see how their team’s developed,” Cozart said.
Hamilton said he’s happy that Cozart is back home and noted that he badly wanted the 2019 Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year when he graduated from Madison Central. Hamilton said both of his bigs, Cozart and fellow forward Dardan Kapiti largely kept the towering Sharp in check, despite Sharp having at least a 7-inch advantage on both of them.
Sharp scored four points and collected five rebounds. Former UK sharpshooter and 2019 Kentucky Mr. Basketball Dontaie Allen nailed his lone three-point attempt in his nine-minute, regular-season debut for the Hilltoppers and finished with four points. Dayvion McKnight, the 2020 Kentucky Mr. Basketball and a key component in the WKU attack, scored 11 points on a rough 4-for-15 shooting performance. McKnight did total a game-high six assists.
WKU’s Stansbury said he was proud of his team’s performance in a season-opening game that he said the home crowd treated like the Super Bowl.
“We knew this was gonna be a difficult game,” Stansbury said. “Anytime you pass out T-shirts and free pizza you know it means something. We knew what it was gonna be. That’s why we scheduled the game.”
Western Kentucky extended its lead in the all-time series — which dates to the 1914-15 season — to 117-44 with its fourth win in a row over the Colonels and 18th in the past 20 meetings.
On the season, the loss makes EKU 1-1. The Colonels dropped 137 points on Miami-Middletown (Ohio) in their season opener.
Next up, the Colonels visit Cincinnati on Sunday at noon. WKU returns to Bowling Green to face Kentucky State on Saturday at 7 p.m.
