BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – In a game of runs with seven lead changes and five ties, WKU Hilltopper Basketball ultimately dropped its conference opener, taking its first home loss of the season to the Rice Owls on Thursday night 81-78.
"Obviously, a tale of two halves," said associate head coach Phil Cunningham who served as interim head coach on Thursday night as Rick Stansbury was out due to a health matter. "We played so well defensively in the first half. Rice is one of the leading scoring teams in the country, one of the most efficient teams from a field goal percentage standpoint. Obviously, they shoot the 3 well. Our guys, to their credit, were really locked in defensively on the game plan and you couldn't a better job than what our guys did in the first half to hold them to 22% overall and 26% from 3. But they're a really good offensive team as we all saw in the second half. I think how well we played in the first half might have wore us down a little bit, we didn't have that same zip defensively. And give them credit, they played tremendous in the second half."
The Tops scored the first 10 points of the game, jumping out to a 10-0 lead. WKU held Rice without a field goal for the first 7:24 of the game. The Owls netted three free throws prior to hitting a 3-pointer at the 12:36 mark; WKU still led 14—6.
WKU held a steady lead throughout the first half as Rice only came as close as eight points. The Hilltoppers led at halftime 36-26.
Coming out of the break, WKU scored the first bucket but Rice proceeded to hit three 3-pointers in the first three and a half minutes of the game, cutting into the Tops' lead 44-40.
The Owls then went on a 9-0 run to flip the game from 46-40 WKU to 49-46 in their own favor. From there, the Hilltoppers regained a two-point lead with a layup from Davyion McKnight and 3-pointer from Luke Frampton, but Rice continued to battle.
The game was back and forth for the next four minutes before WKU used a 9-0 run of its own to take a 66-64 lead at the 6:49 mark. All Hilltopper momentum was diminished as the Owls hit back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers.
Shortly after Rice took a 73-66 lead with just over five minutes remaining, McKnight took a hard hit to the head and neck, resulting in him being carried off the floor with 17 points, five rebounds and two assists in 30 minutes of action.
"We wanted to go out there and represent him the right way," said Jairus Hamilton on the final minutes of the game. "(Dayvion) does a lot for our team, he fights for us every single game, he fights for us on the court every single game, so we just wanted to go out there and represent what he does for us. We just wanted to play a little bit how (Dayvion) does and just try and go out there and get a win."
The Hilltoppers did everything they could to swing momentum back in their direction, eventually taking a 78-77 lead via a Jairus Hamilton 3-pointer. Late foul and goal-tending calls ultimately led to Travis Evee at the charity stripe twice, sinking four free throws.
In-bound attempts for WKU and then Rice both resulted in turnovers, but the Hilltoppers weren't able to make up in the three-point deficit.
"Tough loss, man," added Cunningham. "It'll pull your heart out there, to come back and take that lead and then not finish the game."
WKU outscored Rice in the paint 34-22 and off the bench 14-3. Rice shot just 21.9% from the floor in the first half and ramped it up to 58.1% from the field in the second half, including a 60% (9-15) clip from the 3-point line.
"They were making shots, it's part of the game," said Frampton. "You're going to beat anybody shooting the ball like that. They made shots when they needed to and that's what it came down to."
WKU was led in scoring by Hamilton who had 18 points along with seven boards. He added four steals and two assists.
Jamarion Sharp neared a double-double with 10 points, eight rebounds and four blocks. Frampton looked like his old self, knocking down three 3-pointers and scoring 11 points. Emmanuel Akot added five assists, eight points and six boards.
WKU will travel to Middle Tennessee for a New Year's Eve Day game at 3 p.m. CT in Murfreesboro. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
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