BOWLING GREEN, Ky. Despite getting out rebounded by 10 and shooting 35.5 percent from the field, WKU (4-2) notched another historic win with defense on Tuesday night knocking off Georgia (5-2) 67-63 before 7,086 fans at Diddle Arena. The Hilltoppers committed a season-low nine turnovers and held their fourth opponent in six game to less than 40.0 percent shooting.
In a match-up of teacher versus student, former WKU head coach Dennis Felton returned to the Hill to face his former assistant Ken McDonald. On a national ESPNU telecast, the Toppers led for much of the contest including all of the final 15:27 to notch the program's first home win over a Southeastern Conference (SEC) opponent since 1985.
Coming off an emotional 68-54 win over #3 Louisville in Nashville, Tenn. just two days ago, the Toppers fell behind early 15-8 on a bucket by Zac Swansey with 12:24 to play in the opening half. Terrence Woodbury added three of his 16 first-half points with 7:08 left to push the margin to 22-14, the largest of the game for the Bulldogs.
But WKU scored 10-straight, and used a 16-3 run to grab a 30-25 lead with 4:16 left until the break on a rare four-point-play from junior guard AJ Slaughter. The newly crowned Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week drained a three from the left baseline and was knocked to the ground. Converting the free throw gave Slaughter 10 points during the run. Following a career-day in Nashville on Sunday with 25, he scored 20 to grab game-high honors.
Georgia did not go away, however, closing the final 1:46 on an 8-0 run to claim a 38-35 lead at the half.
In the second half, Sergio Kerusch drove to the basket for two of his 13 on the night to tie the game at 42-42 with 16:04 remaining. Jeremy Evans' jumper 37 seconds later and a Steffphon Pettigrew trey gave WKU back the lead for good 47-42.
Four times Georgia cut the deficit to a single point, the last coming with 1:33 on the clock after an offensive putback by Howard Thompkins of his own missed shot, but the Toppers, who struggled earlier in the night from the line, converted 8-of-10 at the charity stripe in the closing 2:20 to seal the four-point win.
Evans finished with 10 points and six rebounds while Pettigrew added eight points and eight rebounds, with all but three boards coming in the second half.
Thompkins had 10 for the Bulldogs while Woodbury scored only two second half points to finish with 18.
WKU, ranked 35th in the latest ESPN/USA Today Top 25 poll, travels to New Orleans, La. on Saturday, December 6 for a 2:00 PM game with Tulane.
NOTES:
The crowd of 7,086 was larger than all but one home crowd during last year's NCAA Sweet 16 run, the South Alabama game
This marks the second win in the last three years against Georgia
Historic wins continue: the Nov. 18 Campbellsville win was Coach McDonald's first career victory; the Nov. 30 Louisville win was the first over a top three opponent since 1967; and the Dec. 2 Georgia win was the first at home over an SEC foe since 1985
Georgia is the defending SEC Tournament Champions
WKU improves to 3-5 all-time against Georgia, picking in their first win against the Bulldogs in Diddle (now 1-3)
In 46 years of Diddle Arena, WKU had just four previous home wins over SEC foes (Auburn--1985, South Carolina--1980, Vanderbilt--1946, and Mississippi State--1941)
Freshman Dejan Cvoro made his collegiate debut
WKU improves to 23-29 all-time against the 12 current members of the SEC
WKU wins its ninth-straight non-conference game at Diddle Arena, and 16 of last 17)
WKU is 488-131 all-time at Diddle Arena
AJ Slaughter posts back-to-back 20-point scoring nights for WKU
QUOTES:
WKU head coach Ken McDonald
On playing Dennis Felton:
“I’m not going to lie to you, I didn’t look down at the Georgia bench one time during the game. And that’s just because I was focused on the game. It got emotional after the game and I actually didn’t think that it would. Dennis has meant a lot to my career and I wish him luck. He is a class act and he talked to me about our team and how good he thought we were doing. I think Georgia is going to go on and have a great year. I know he’s excited about his team and the chemistry that they have. It was emotional. I said that I wasn’t going to cry but I really was emotional shaking his hand. Their whole staff is terrific and I’ve been with them a long time, since I was 24.”
On the home crowd:
“The fans were terrific and I want to thank them for coming out. I don’t know if tonight was a sellout, but it definitely felt like it. When you need a stop there is nothing like having your home crowd behind you. If this game would have been played at Georgia, who knows what would have happened. Our home fan base just did a great job tonight and the students were great.”
On the game:
“I don’t think we played great. In the first half, I don’t think we played well at all. I think we got out hustled. I told the guys at halftime that it was a real shame because we have come so far in such a short time, but if we would have ended the game at halftime then we would have had regrets. I think we got the hustle points in the second half. Fortunately, we made enough shots to get it done but I think they set the tone physically. I don’t think Steffphon was himself tonight either. We asked him to play [Samardo] Samuels two days ago against Louisville and then today we asked him to guard guys that are even bigger than Samuels. That is a tough task. We just found ways at the end especially with rebounding to help us win the game.”
WKU junior guard AJ Slaughter (#4)
On playing Georgia on ESPNU:
“This game showed the nation that we aren’t just a fluke team. We showed that we can go out any night and play with any team in the country. We were coming off an emotional win over Louisville and then only had two days to rest before we had to play again. But like coach said, we just had to be mentally tough and go out and play as hard as we could. I think that is what we did tonight and that is why we came out with the win.””
On the confidence of the team:
“Our confidence has dramatically changed. After the Murray State game a lot of us had our heads down but now you can see the guys’ confidence in their eyes. We know that we can compete with anybody.”
On the fans:
“This is one of the biggest and loudest crowds that I have seen. I think it definitely gave us an advantage tonight especially with us coming off a big win over Louisville. Just knowing that the fans had our back and with them cheering us on, it definitely helps us.”
WKU junior forward Jeremy Evans (#40)
On playing hard:
“Coach brought it to our attention that we have to go out every night and play hard, especially after the Murray State game. He told us that it isn’t going to be easy because everyone wants a piece of us.”
On blocking Georgia in the post:
“Coach McDonald told us going into the game that this game was going to be very physical. He said that it was going to be even more physical than the last game because they have two or three guys the size of Samuels. We took that as a challenge and it’s getting us ready to compete against bigger guys. This gets us ready for what we will have to face in the future.”
Georgia head coach Dennis Felton
On the game:
“I knew Western Kentucky was playing excellent basketball right now and we are a very young team with five freshmen and four sophomores, so this was clearly our first opportunity to play in this kind of atmosphere. It was really electric and obviously everyone was rooting against us. I was pleased with the overall response from our team in terms of competing and playing with togetherness. We had pretty solid poise throughout. It was a heck of a game but I thought down the stretch that we lost our grip on the game and we missed a couple of defensive rebounds that we had to get. We had a handful of really bad fouls that let Western Kentucky pull away from us at the free throw line. I’m quite certain that our team will learn from that and this was just a great learning experience for us so we won’t make those same kind of mistakes in the future.”
