WKU Basketball: McKnight Nets 34 but Toppers Fall Flat, 73–69, Against Minnesota
It was not a reassuring performance from the Hilltoppers after a disappointing opening game on Tuesday as WKU fell, 73–69, to Minnesota in the first game of the Asheville Championship.
The first half was all Minnesota: WKU never led in the first half. Horrid turnovers plagued the offense, created by awful passes inside. One in particular saw Luke Frampton tried to bounce pass a ball to a wide open back door cut by the 7'5 Jamarion Sharp, only to have it knocked away easily by a defender that didn’t even have to move a centimeter to get the pass.
Why no alley-oop was thrown there is one of life’s biggest mysteries.
The second half was more of the same until about the seven-minute mark. There was some effort plays here and there by the Hilltoppers but, overall, they just sort of went through the motions and got beat in all aspects of the game by Minnesota.
The Hilltoppers did try and make a comeback, though: Well, Dayvion McKnight tried to single handedly bring the entire team back. He was on fire in the second half, scoring 28 of his 34 points in the back 20 minutes and went 7-for-11 from the floor in that same span.
But when the Tops needed someone else to step up, besides Sharp on defense, no one really answered.
It’s early, but the most disappointing start for a Hilltopper is easily Frampton, who once again went 0-for from deep (0-for-5).
Western Kentucky looked unprepared, uninterested, and unintelligent during most of this game (besides McKnight, he channeled his inner Kobe Bryant).
And this is not a very good Minnesota team either.
Watching this team play on offense is like watching a YMCA pickup game. Just pathetic attempts at one on one offense on almost every play. The performance was capped off by a chance to tie, where instead of letting the hot hand McKnight take the three to tie it, Hamilton took three jab steps and shot a contested three with 10 seconds left.
At least McKnight played extremely well, literally tried to carry us to a victory. Hamilton looked alright tonight. Sharp looks like he could be good with more opportunities. The rest of the team? Yikes.
WKU now awaits the result of Friday night’s South Carolina/Princeton game to see who they’ll face on Sunday.
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