July 30th marks roughly 100 days until the 2018-19 season tipoff for the 100th season of WKU Hilltopper Basketball, and over the next 100 days, WKU Athletics will treat fans to unique moments and interesting history from Hilltopper Basketball, all leading up to the start of the season in November.
| DAY 80 (August 19) |
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| WKU forward Greg Jackson laces up his shoes in the locker room before a game in the 1978-79 season. The senior Jackson led the Hilltoppers with 18.2 points and 8.8 rebounds per game that season in Gene Keady's first year as head coach. |
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| DAY 79 (August 20) |
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| WKU Basketball head coach Ralph Willard and Hilltoppers Mark Bell and Darnell Mee talk to the media at an NCAA Tournament press conference during the 1992-93 season. WKU knocked off Memphis State in its opening game of the tournament, then defeated No. 6 Seton Hall in the following round. The Hilltoppers fell 81-78 in overtime to No. 11 Florida State to end the Sweet 16 run. Mee (18.9 points per game) and Bell (16.8 ppg) led the program in scoring that season. |
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| DAY 78 (August 21) |
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| WKU Basketball players Kevin Dildy (from left), Bryan Teater and Ken Hatcher hold up the 1981 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament championship after defeating Murray State 71-67 in the title game in Bowling Green. The Hilltoppers finished 21-8, eventually losing to UAB in their NCAA Tournament opener. |
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| DAY 77 (August 22) |
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| The 1961-62 WKU Hilltopper Basketball team listens to some words of advice from head coach E.A. Diddle. Pictured standing, from left: E.A. Diddle, assistant coach Ted Hornback, Bobby Jackson and Jim Dunn. Pictured seated, from left: Bobby Rascoe, Doug Smith, Darrel Carrier and Harry Todd. The Hilltoppers finished 17-10 that season, including 11-1 in Ohio Valley Conference play, and competed in the NCAA Tournament. Diddle also completed his 1,000th game as coach at WKU, making him the first coach in history to reach that total at one school. |
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| DAY 76 (August 23) |
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| WKU Hilltopper Basketball guard Brett McNeal (left) interacts with President Ronald Reagan as the commander-in-chief speaks to an overflow crowd of about 13,000 people at E.A. Diddle Arena on Oct. 21, 1988. Reagan was visiting on behalf of his vice president, George H.W. Bush, the 1988 Republican nominee for president. McNeal, who was entering his senior season at the time, ranks fifth in Hilltopper history with 1,856 career points. |
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| DAY 75 (August 24) |
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| WKU Hilltopper Basketball guard Mike Wells drives to the basket, but recognize the coach on the visiting bench? It's current WKU head coach Rick Stansbury, then coaching Mississippi State in the 2003-04 season. The Hilltoppers came up short against Stansbury's Bulldogs squad, 81-75, on Nov. 29, 2003, at E.A. Diddle Arena. Stansbury's 2003-04 MSU squad finished 26-4, winning the SEC title and earned him SEC Coach of the Year honors. Wells was inducted into the WKU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016 after a career in which he was named an All-American and Sun Belt Player of the Year as a senior, as well as two-time Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year. |
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| DAY 74 (August 25) |
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| That young boy holding the basketball up front at the class play in 1934? That's John Oldham, who now has the court at E.A. Diddle Arena named for him. Oldham would later star at Hartford High School in nearby Ohio County before earning All-American honors as a Hilltopper, around his service in the U.S. Navy in World War II. In 1964, Oldham took the coaching reins from Diddle and led WKU to four Ohio Valley Conference titles and the 1971 Final Four before retiring. He then became WKU's athletic director, a position he held until 1986. The court at Diddle Arena was named in Oldham's honor in 2012. |
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| DAY 73 (August 26) |
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| The 1927-28 WKU Basketball team takes its team photo with coach E.A. Diddle's pet dog, Rex, front and center. WKU's Lynn Niedermeier shared the story of Rex in her work, "The Dogs of Western." The following is an excerpt: "A famous example is Coach E. A. Diddle's Irish setter, Rex. One of Western's first unofficial mascots, said to rival Mrs. Diddle for his master's affections, Rex could often be seen trotting across the grass (an activity then forbidden to people), circulating among classrooms, presiding on the sidelines at football and basketball games, and positioning himself prominently in athletic team photographs. Naturally, students and faculty were alarmed one fall day in 1933 when eleven-year-old Rex went missing. "Boys," Coach Diddle told his basketball players, "we ain't gonna sleep, practice or eat until we find old Rex." The boys may have been glad for this break in their routine. Years earlier, when Diddle still coached football, some of the players had tied his beloved pet to a distant tree, knowing that Coach would soon halt their strenuous workout to organize a search. This time, the quest to find Rex spread from campus, to city, to county—without success. The mystery was only solved a day or two later when Coach walked to his car, opened the trunk and, to his surprise, saw the hungry but otherwise unharmed pooch looking back at him. In classic Diddle fashion, he shouted, "Rex, where in the hell have you been all this time?" ... In 1936, in the midst of his rounds across campus, Rex lay down for the last time. All of Western, declared the Herald, mourned the "king of Western dogdom," soon interred in the garden of Coach Diddle's house on Normal Drive." |
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| DAY 72 (August 27) |
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| WKU Hilltopper Basketball guard Darnell Mee (left) addresses a crowd of fans waiting on campus as the team returned from the 1993 Sun Belt Conference Tournament. WKU defeated No. 13 New Orleans in the championship game, claiming a No. 20 ranking itself in the next Associated Press top 25 poll. The Hilltoppers went on to advance to the NCAA Sweet 16, with Mee leading the way with 18.9 points per game. |
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| DAY 71 (August 28) |
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| Former WKU head coach Gene Keady is surrounded by the 1979-80 Hilltopper squad, hoisting the 1980 OVC Tournament trophy in E.A. Diddle Arena. On its way to the championship, the Hilltoppers defeated in-state foe Eastern Kentucky in overtime, 84-83. In the finals of the tournament, WKU defeated Murray State 54-51, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. |
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