Bluegrassrivals

hree years ago Western Kentucky basketball coach Ken McDonald took the pieces that Darrin Horn left him and beat the University of Louisville by a legitimate 14 points on a neutral floor in Nashville.

Now all of Horn’s players are gone from a proud program. Friday night at the KFC Yum! Center the Hilltoppers made Louisville hyperventilate and fret for 40 minutes.

They made 3-point shots. They dunked on the Cards. They forced Rick Pitino to call three timeouts in the first half as his team threw the ball away 10 times.

Eventually, with another spirited performance by Russ Smith (23 points), Louisville took control, easing to a 70-60 victory that seemed more like a 70-69 victory.

Now you wonder what effect Western’s impressive performance will have on the speculation that continues to echo that WKU is inching toward making the change the school nearly made at the end of last season — replacing McDonald with a new coach who can make Western Kentucky an NCAA Tournament team again.

When?

Certainly by March, when the Sun Belt Conference season is over. But perhaps sooner if McDonald’s growing critics have their way. Is change coming to Bowling Green?

“I don’t want to speculate on anything right now,” Western athletic director Ross Bjork said at the game.

Difficult to translate that as an overpowering vote of confidence for McDonald.

“I just want to focus on the start of conference and focus on improving as a basketball team,” Bjork said. “That’s what we’re focused on right now.”

Indeed. There is no embarrassment in losing to Louisville, especially when the Cards are unbeaten and ranked in the top five in both polls. If Western plays its next dozen games the way the Hilltoppers played Friday, they can turn their season around.

But the Louisville game isn’t what has inspired people to howl. The Hilltoppers are now 4-9, losing to IUPUI and Furman in the two games that preceded their trip to Louisville. That shouldn’t happen. That can’t happen.

“The last two weeks kind of magnified (everything),” Bjork said. “The losses hurt, losing to Furman and IUPUI. They beat us fair and square. Under normal circumstances those are programs that you want to beat. And we should be beating.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/2...t|Sports|p

Derrick Gordon is a hell of a player. He is going to define Western's program over the next four seasons.

Good game tonight besides buckles possible injuried... Big week with Gtown coming to town and then over to Lextown next week. Could be interesting!
Go cards!

What a showing by WKU. Almost pulled off a huge upset. This team is very young with all Freshman on the floor alot of the game. Look for great things from WKU in the next few years.

WKU really put up a fight in this one. Cards still found a way to win.

WKU has given both UK and UL fits in the past. I still remember when they came to Rupp in 2001 and beat UK 64-52 with Chris Marcus and co. Many would argue in the 2007 - 2008 season based on the tournament results that WKU was the best team in the state of KY. Sometimes schools like WKU, Murray State, and Morehead State that have had some very good basketball programs have been overshadowed by the success of UK and UL.

Hats off to WKU for a terrific effort, I'm sure WKU will continue their typical success of very good regular seasons and giving somebody nightmares in the tournament. Congrats to UL on the win. I'm sure theVille and itzAmazing, along with other UL fans, would like to see UL open up a big lead in some of their games - but they're still finding a way to win, and that's all that matters.

I was hoping WKU would pull off the upset

^ I'm glad they didn't and am hopeful for a Ville win over G-Town. I want UK to be their first loss. That would make it even more sweet. If they lose before the UK game, then it's really not going to be that big of a deal!