MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — WKU Hilltopper Basketball bounced back in convincing fashion Saturday, rolling past rival Middle Tennessee for a 69-53 road win.
The Hilltoppers (10-6 overall, 3-1 Conference USA) locked down on the defensive end, holding Middle Tennessee to 35.8 percent shooting from the field and 25 percent from 3-point range.
WKU also forced 18 turnovers, turning them into 25 points on the other end.
The victory got rid of the bad taste from Thursday's road loss at UAB. It also came with graduate senior guard Camron Justice out with a lingering back injury.
"I'm awful proud of our guys," WKU head coach Rick Stansbury said. "We came in here down another guy, with basically five guys who've been playing any minutes at all. We knew we had to come here and try to find ways to defend those perimeter people. I can say from Thursday to Saturday, little adjustments that we made, our players were able to get better from it."
WKU got a game-high 18 points from junior guard Taveion Hollingsworth, as well as 15 points from junior guard Josh Anderson and 14 points from redshirt junior forward Carson Williams.
Two bench players also provided a crucial spark.
Redshirt freshman guard Jeremiah Gambrell had career highs of seven points and six rebounds in 19 minutes, while freshman forward Isaiah Cozart earned his first minutes since Nov. 23 and had an early dunk.
"With two guys down, Coach and everybody on the team believes in me," Gambrell said. "They told me to come in and just play and be myself. I was doing the little things – getting rebounds, just playing defense – and I can help my team in different ways, too."
WKU went on a 21-2 run in the first half to take control, turning a one-point lead into a 34-14 advantage on a dunk by Anderson at the 6:02 mark.
The Hilltoppers shot 64 percent in the first half and led 42-24 at halftime. Middle Tennessee (4-13, 0-4) scored six straight points to trim its deficit to 14 early in the second half, but WKU answered with baskets from Hollingsworth and Williams.
The Hilltoppers ultimately led for just over 37 minutes.
They've now won two straight in the series after losing eight of the previous nine. WKU had lost seven of its last eight in Murfreesboro entering Saturday.
"That's how you bounce back," Anderson said. "We've got some veteran guys. After Thursday, we talked in the group chat, came together and talked about what we needed to get better on and things we can improve on, and I think we did that well tonight."
Reggie Scurry led Middle Tennessee with 15 points.
The Hilltoppers return home to host Old Dominion at 7 p.m. CT Thursday at E.A. Diddle Arena in a rematch of the 2019 Conference USA Tournament championship game. The matchup will air on CBS Sports Network.
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