Lady Toppers Basketball: Lady Tops Fall to Purdue, 79–69, at Home to Open Regular Season
Western Kentucky women’s basketball is attempting to erase the horrifying COVID-filled memories of the 2020 basketball season. Despite all of the excuses, free transfers and graduates who may have contributed significantly if they had chosen to stay, have forced the Lady Tops - just like everyone else - to nearly start from scratch with only a few familiar faces in the locker room.
However, going 7–16 overall and cleaning house may well have been exactly what was needed. Meral Abdelgawad and Hope Sivori both mentioned in preseason press conferences that this team seems to have more chemistry, likes each other, and wants to get along with each other and play hard.
From the tone of nonchalant but revealing answers, WKU seems to be in a much better place than last year.
Fast forward through the first and only exhibition game: Of course the Lady Tops were likely going to win, but the style and pace of play was really nice to see. WKU’s 112 points in the first exhibition game were the most points scored by a Lady Topper squad since the 1990s. So in exhibitions, you like to see things that indicate something more than just that you’re almost certainly going to win. That could be statistics, performance, effort, continuing to fight throughout the game. In this case, it was the 112 points that stood out as remarkable, regardless of the level of competition.
Well, with WKU’s result, it certainly put to bed how WKU was going to score and whether young players could step in and contribute.
The Purdue Boilermakers came to town Wednesday, probably expecting a fairly easy battle.
Well, they got all they could handle, and the surprising Lady Toppers can all of a sudden put pressure on an opponent offensively, boasting some more depth and ability than possibly anticipated heading into the season.
The bottom line is losing 79–69 to a Power 5 school in Purdue is a good first-game result for a team that got slaughtered last year, especially early.
Abdelgawad led the way for the Lady Toppers, with 20 points in 31 minutes of action. WKU head coach Greg Collins spread the wealth against Purdue, playing 10 deep into the bench. No player besides Meral played more than 25 minutes.
Bench players Macy Blevins and Mya Meredith scored 11 and 10 points, respectively, to round out the double-digit scorers.
The Lady Tops saw fairly balanced scoring on the night, but really needs some game experience to compete at a high level going forward.
WKU came out fairly slowly, down six at the first quarter break. But, WKU picked it up and cut the lead to 33–31 at halftime.
Purdue took its stranglehold in the third quarter, gaining a ten point lead to cruise through the fourth with the Toppers in desperation mode.
All told, the Lady Toppers do not look like a heartless, hopeless, jumbled mess. I think many thought we would get that this season. However, they’re clearly able to score at a high level if they need to. WKU now draws a WNIT field that shows they may be able to win a few games, but regardless, WKU is now, after playing a Power 5 and competing, maybe considered a possible surprise.
The Lady Toppers head to Manhattan, Kansas to play North Carolina A&T, Kansas State and UT Martin. The first of those games will tip off Friday at 4 p.m.
These are nice opportunities to gain them some exposure to higher level basketball and get acclimated quickly to deal ultimately with the rigors of conference play. The expectations are low for the Lady Tops, but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they find a way to shock a few teams along the way heading into conference play and prove to be a decent team.
