With just five games remaining in the 2010-11 regular season for the Western Kentucky University women's basketball team, the home stretch begins Wednesday night as the Lady Toppers host first-place Middle Tennessee in a 7:30 p.m. (CST) Sun Belt Conference East Division showdown at E.A. Diddle Arena. WKU (10-13, 7-4 SBC East) enters the contest having won two straight games, and five consecutive at home. MTSU (19-5, 10-1 SBC East) has won five straight in the series.
Balanced Attack - WKU is the only team in the Sun Belt Conference to currently have four players ranked among the league's top 30 scoring leaders. Janae Howard (14th - 12.2 ppg), Arnika Brown (17th - 11.5 ppg), LaTeira Owens (23rd - 10.9 ppg) and Amy McNear (28th - 9.6 ppg) make up the Lady Toppers on the list. Arkansas State, Denver, Florida International, Louisiana-Monroe, and Middle Tennessee all have three players among the top 30 scorers.
Double-Double Duo - For the third time this season, the Lady Toppers had two different players post double-doubles in the same game. This time, it was Arnika Brown who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, while Amy McNear posted 17 points and 10 assists. It was the first time a Lady Topper had a points-assists double-double since McNear did so with 14 points and 10 assists against Louisiana-Lafayette on Jan. 21, 2009 - the only other double-double of her career.
McNear Moves Into Top 10...Again - For the third straight season, Amy McNear has put up an assist total that ranks among the top 10 in Lady Topper history. In fact, with her 10 assists against ULM, the Memphis native set a new career high, and now stands a 141 assists on the year. She finished with 140 each of the past two seasons. McNear joins Clemette Haskins as the only two Lady Toppers with multiple spots on the single-season top 10. Both are on the list three times.
Block Party - In the past two games, the Lady Toppers have put up big numbers in the blocked-shots department, averaging 7.5 blocks per game. WKU's eight blocks against South Alabama on Wednesday was a season high, and the seven against Louisiana-Monroe rank second on that list. Prior to last week, the season high for blocks this season was six against at both Vanderbilt and USA.
Howard Turning It On - After a pair of below-average games, sophomore Janae Howard got back to form on Saturday, tossing in a game-high 24 points against ULM. It was the fourth time this season that Howard has scored 20-plus points in a game, and the eighth time this season she has led WKU in scoring. Howard has now scored 20 or more in three of the last five games, including a season-high 30 against Troy on Jan. 22.
Home Sweet Home - Since dropping a one-point decision to Denver in their first home game of 2011, the Lady Toppers have rattled off five straight home victories heading into Wednesday's game with Middle Tennessee. Over that stretch, WKU is outscoring its opponents by 14.4 points per game, and shooting 44 percent from the field. That is 48 points higher than its season shooting percentage. Individually, Janae Howard is scoring 18.2 points per game and averaging 4.2 made threes per game during the home winning streak, while Arnika Brown is averaging 17.8 points and 10.2 rebounds.
