WKU Basketball: Bassey double-double leads Tops to 75–69 Thanksgiving Day win over Memphis
Western Kentucky notched their second-straight win to open the 2020/21 season, erasing an early 10-point first-half deficit and holding off a late-game surge by the Memphis Tigers to advance to the championship round of the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic with a 75–69 win on Thanksgiving Day.
Hilltopper center Charles Bassey came three blocks shy of logging a triple-double, scoring a WKU-best 21 points and 14 rebounds along with seven blocks.
Trailing by one point to open the second half, the Tops came out hot, scoring three of the first buckets of the second 20 minutes to take a 40–37 lead early in the half.
WKU continued to control the pace of the second half, eventually building a lead as big as nine, before the Tigers began to claw their way back in, as the Tops were never able to deliver a blow to put the Tigers completely in the rear-view mirror.
Key plays in the paint down the stretch from Bassey and Northern Kentucky transfer Carson Williams kept the Tops afloat until the Tigers began fouling the Tops, where WKU made Memphis pay, hitting 10 of the 11 free throw attempts in the closing minute of the contest.
Cooper wasn’t much of a factor for the Tops in the first 59 minutes on the stat sheet, but was a huge presence at the charity stripe in the home stretch.
Not to be outdone by Bassey on the scoresheet, the Tops had two other players score double figures, Taveion Hollingsworth (18) and Williams (14).
The Tops and Tigers went back-and-forth in the game’s opening half, including swapping long scoring runs. Memphis went on a 13–0 run over a seven-plus minute stretch in the middle stages of the first half that was ended by three-straight three pointers from WKU, with Hollingsworth, Williams and Luke Fampton making the triples in succession, to pull the Tops within 18–17 with 8:24 to play in the half.
It was another Williams three with 2:31 left to play in the half that gave the Tops their first lead since 8–5, at 31–30, but the Tigers took a 35–34 lead into the halftime locker room.
The Hilltoppers’ second unit wasn’t much of a factor in this one, as they were against Northern Iowa to open the season, but it really didn’t matter much in the long run: Stansbury opted, especially in the second half, for lineups that consisted of at least three-fifths of the Tops’ starting five, riding the hot hands, especially as the game was jumping between a four and six or seven point lead in the closing seconds.
WKU struggled with Memphis’ full-court pressure in the closing seconds, turning the ball over just past half court once, on a double-team of Cooper who was indecisive with the ball and couldn’t find an outlet he liked, and turning it over again in the backcourt on an inbound pass to Hollingsworth near the boundary.
If teams are going to look for an example of how to slow WKU down and make them uncomfortable, that tape will speak wonders, as the Tops didn’t handle the pressure well at all.
The Tops also struggled when playing a 2–3 defense, often leaving holes in the lane that were either unattended or attended to too late, allowing for easy Tiger buckets. Memphis also had several open looks from three that were allowed thanks to the 2–3 defensive look.
All nit-picks aside, the Tops are 2–0 to start the year and have two quality wins to the resume, with a chance to add one more on Friday in the Crossover Classic championship against the winner of Thursday afternoon’s game between West Virginia and VCU.
The Tops will take on the winner of that game on Friday at 11:30 a.m. CT.
