With a five game win-streak and a fresh 82-49 win against Sam Houston over the weekend, the Lady Toppers are carrying momentum into this week's conference road games.
WKU will travel to play UTEP on Thursday, Jan. 30 for its eighth conference game of the season, followed up by New Mexico State on Saturday, Feb. 1. In the weekly press conference, head coach Greg Collins emphasized the importance of routine on the road, using ball movement to their advantage, and focusing on defensive efforts and togetherness heading into this week.
WKU has had a few road stints this season - including a trip to Hawai'i. Through the time they've spent on the road, the Lady Toppers have been able to fine-tune what routine looks like for them outside of Bowling Green.
"You have to try to stick to as much routine as you can, even though you're on the road," coach Collins said during the press conference. "You have to try to make sure you get that rest and the rehab that you get at home, on the road. And you have to make sure you're still doing what you do. We have to focus on what we do and not the crowd, not the officials, not on whatever it is that's going on on the road. You have to rely on yourself, and that's the routine that you have to make sure you focus on, whether it's the routine of warming up or the routine of how you play."
WKU displayed phenomenal ball movement against Sam Houston last Saturday, marking 23 total assists against the Bearkats. The momentum they generated from their ball-sharing was a huge factor in the win, and something Collins wants to continue to prioritize through this week's matchups.
"The other film edit we watched Monday was on our ball movement [from Saturday], because I wanted them to recognize how well they did in sharing the ball. For the most part, the ball doesn't stick and I think that's why we have that kind of balance. As long as you don't care who gets the credit, then there's no limit to what you can accomplish together. So we're going to try to continue to move the ball freely, try to find the best shot. As long as we continue to do that and play unselfishly on offense, then we should be hard to guard. We just have to keep knocking some of those shots down."
Defensive efforts by everyone on the court and coming off of the bench were huge for Saturday's win, too. Collins said that when the team chemistry is solid and everyone is playing good defense together, that's a hard team to beat.
"We talk about when players go in, their goal is to play defense, rebound, and take care of the ball. We're really working on trying to play better and better defense together. Any one person can play great defense, but if you play great defense together, you've got something special. And we're working on that all the time. This will be a challenge both in El Paso and at New Mexico State to continue to do that on the road, but that's how we try to make it fun. We don't do a lot of complicated things. We try to keep things pretty simple and we try to be really good at the few things we do."
