WKU Hilltoppers: Top Stories of 2018
We’re just days away from the 2018 calendar coming to a close, a year that was eventful year in the WKU Sports universe and The Towel Rack was there every step of the way to report and react what we thought about the news.
There were many highs and lows in 2018 as most of the major sports on the Hill were in various stages of transition. With that in mind let’s review the top news stories of 2018 and analyze their importance.
5.) Michelle Clark-Heard Leaves WKU for Cincinnati
In March, after leading her alma mater to their fourth NCAA tournament appearance in five years, rumors began to spread that Lady Topper head coach Michelle Clark-Heard was looking to leave Bowling Green for a bigger opportunity. Ole Miss and Cincinnati were both in the running before Clark-Heard shockingly announced she was leaving for the AAC’s Bearcats, a program with just four NCAA tournament appearances in their entire history.
Money ended up being the biggest reason why Clark-Heard left her alma mater for, arguably, a worse job. WKU hadn’t been able to give her a raise in years and recently cut a support staff position. It was a tough pill to swallow losing Clark-Heard to a less than appealing job and yet the latest example of how hard it is for WKU to keep successful coaches, no matter how many ties they have to the school.
Clark-Heard left WKU with 108–27 record and six postseason appearances (four NCAA, two WNIT) quickly saving the program from the aftermath of the Mary Taylor Cowles era.
WKU Athletic Director Todd Stewart quickly replaced her with MCH assistant Greg Collins, who had to replace seniors Tashia Brown and Ivy Brown, and has so far struggled to a 5–8 start in his debut season. There is still plenty of time to right the ship but losing a talented alum like Clark-Heard to an average job will sting for years to come.
4.) Tyson Helton quickly hired to replace Mike Sanford
When Todd Stewart announced that head football coach, Mike Sanford was being relieved of his duties (more below), WKU fans buckled up for yet another potentially long coaching search. Surprisingly, the hiring process took just two days for Stewart to find Sanford’s replacement in former WKU Offensive Coordinator, Tyson Helton. Helton had been a pivotal part of Jeff Brohm’s staff in 2014 and 2015 before leaving to join his brother Clay at USC.
With the quick hire, it appeared that Stewart had his man all along and made a hire that quickly moved the program back to the style of football that made the program successful in the first place. Helton moves the program back to the Brohm-style of offense that Stewart mistakenly got away from when he hired Sanford. With him back on board, fans now are hoping to return to a high scoring up-tempo offense.
Thus far, Helton has said all of the right things and has done a solid job recruiting impact players despite only a few weeks on the job. We’ll have to wait to see how he does in his debut season against a tough schedule (UofL, Arkansas, Army, UAB, Southern Miss along with the usual Conference USA East opponents) but the hiring of Helton at least hits the reset button on a program that quickly cratered in the wrong direction.
3.) Charles Bassey reclassifies and signs with WKU basketball
After the Mitchell Robinson saga in 2017, most WKU fans were rightfully cautious to get their hopes up for 5 Star center Charles Bassey. Despite the 247Sports crystal ball predictions to WKU and him playing at nearby Aspire Academy, there was significantly less buzz about Bassey potentially becoming a Hilltopper than his five-star predecessor.
That all changed on June 13, as Charles Bassey not only committed to the WKU basketball program but announced he was reclassifying to join WKU’s 2018 class, making him eligible to play during the 2018/19 season. Just an hour later, WKU made it official and despite some trepidation about his guardian Hennssy Auriantal joining the staff and him maybe copying Robinson and never playing for the Tops, Bassey’s path to a Hilltopper uniform has been relatively drama free.
Despite WKU’s mediocre 6–6 start, Bassey has lived up to the hype, averaging 14.2 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game. He has repeatedly played his best games against the best big men on WKU’s schedule including Daniel Gafford, Tacko Fall, and Sagaba Konate. Bassey should continue to get better as the season goes on and will probably become WKU’s first NBA draft pick since Jeremy Evans in 2010. If WKU figures it out on the court, his successful path will hopefully help attract future top-flight prospects to the Hill.
2.) WKU basketball comes up short in C-USA tournament, makes a memorable run to NIT Final Four
The 2017/18 WKU basketball season was a roller coaster of emotions from high points, like upsets over Purdue and SMU, to low points, like losses to UTSA and UAB with player eligibility drama mixed in between.
By the time the C-USA tournament started in March, the Tops were reeling from two straight horrible losses on the road to Middle Tennessee and UAB. Confidence in the squad wasn’t high as they traveled to Frisco, Texas. But, playing in the weird and unique two court set-up, WKU caught fire during their first two games of the tournament; they exacted revenge on UAB by returning the favor in an 18 point blow out win and handled Old Dominion’s slow down style throughout in an eight-point victory to vault them to the Conference USA Tournament title game where they were looking to beat Marshall for the third time this season.
With an NCAA tournament bid on the line, WKU went back and forth with the Thundering Herd, eventually trailing by three points at the half. That closeness changed in the second half as the Herd’s Jon Elmore couldn’t miss and the Herd took a 12-point lead with 3:27 left on the strength of 60% shooting from three.
While the Tops’ chances looked bleak, they mounted a huge 11–0 run to cut the lead to one with 18 seconds left. What happened next was pure heartbreak, as Lemonte Bearden’s runner barely missed and the Tops missed out on the NCAA tournament in excruciatingly close fashion.
From there, the Tops could have packed it in but they gave fans the Tops most memorable postseason run since 2008, entering the NIT and taking down three power conference teams on their way to their first trip to New York since 1948.
The Tops handled Boston College at home before traveling out west to take on USC. In yet another memorable game, the Tops emerged from Los Angeles with a 79–76 win and a trip to Oklahoma State with a trip to Madison Square Garden on the line. In arguably their most hostile road trip of the season, WKU jumped to a comfortable lead that they would never relinquish in route to a 92–84 win.
Their season wasn’t over yet. In New York they met the Utah Utes and, despite leading by one with 55 seconds left, the Tops couldn’t make enough plays to advance to the NIT Championship game, losing 69–64.
Despite not taking home the NIT Championship, WKU had arguably their best season in a decade. Seniors Justin Johnson, Darius Thompson & Dwight Coleby put up many memorable performances and the groundwork had been laid for a return of high-level basketball to the Hill.
1.) Football program craters to 3–9 finish, Mike Sanford fired
2018 was always expected to be a rebuilding year on the Hill for the football team. Gone were upper-class leaders like Mike White, Joel Iyiegbuniwe, Deon Yelder, Nacarius Fant, and Dennis Edwards. Mike Sanford had a talented but young team but expectations were for him to compete for a 5-to-7 win type season in his second year as a head coach.
What happened next was truly disheartening for the Hilltopper fan base: After a better than expected showing against Wisconsin, the Tops hosted FCS Maine in their home opener and, despite jumping out to a 21–0 lead in the first five, minutes the wheels came off as WKU let the Black Bears score 31 unanswered points in a 31–28 loss. A fan base that begrudgingly was giving Sanford the benefit of the doubt now was in panic mode.
What followed was a string of agonizingly close losses, including winnable games against rivals Louisville and Marshall being sandwiched by a close win against Ball State.
Entering the bye week, the heat was on Sanford as WKU stood at 1–4 barely a month into the season. Coming off the bye, the Hilltoppers got blown out by perennial cellar dweller Charlotte before losing in spectacularly disheartening fashion to Old Dominion in a game the Tops led late and should have forced overtime at the very least.
From there, WKU’s season continued to flounder with blowout losses to FIU, MTSU, and FAU, leaving the Tops at 1–9 heading into the UTEP game. Sanford had lost all but the most patient of fans and disinterest was at its highest level since David Elson had transitioned the program to FBS in 2009. The terrible on the field product, lack of progress and excuses had most of the fanbase moving onto basketball before November hit.
Fans were left wondering how a program coming off back-to-back conference titles had fallen so quickly in under two seasons and the blame rightfully went to their 36-year-old coach. Prior to senior night against UTEP, a report surfaced that Sanford was coaching for his job the last two games. Win both and he’d keep his job and lose both he was gone, split and they’d have to wait and see.
Despite only 6,221 fans showing up for senior night, WKU responded by blowing out the one-win Miners, 40–16, that got them to their second victory of the season. Sanford was thought to now have a chance to save his job in the season finale at Louisiana Tech. In that game, the Tops jumped out to a 23–0 lead and would cement an emotional win with a 36-yard touchdown run by D’Andre Ferby in a 30–15 win to move the Tops to 3–9 on the season.
Fans were begrudgingly preparing for year three of the Mike Sanford era.
The next day, surprising news broke that Mike Sanford would be fired as WKU football coach accumulating a 9–16 record in two seasons. Despite the surprising nature of the firing, fans were overjoyed by the decisive action taken by Todd Stewart. He pretty much admitted that Sanford wasn’t going to work out and he needed to remedy the situation as quickly as possible, buy-out be dammed.
The fan attendance during the UTEP game, computer rankings and poor performances were all cited by Stewart as to why Sanford needed to go. What was the most disheartening season in almost a decade ended with the most unexpected firing on the Hill since Ken McDonald in 2012. The reset button was now hit on the program and a divisive coach was now gone.
Honorable Mentions:
Joel Iyiegbuniewe and Mike White get drafted
While we’ve all gotten used to WKU football players being drafted regularly since 2013 (10 players have been drafted in that span), Iggy and White might be the last Toppers drafted for at least a few years. Iggy is now the sixth-highest drafted player of all time for WKU. The fourth round pick had a decent impact during his rookie year, playing mainly special teams on a stacked Chicago Bears defense.
White, despite being a fifth-rounder, made the Cowboys active roster out of training camp and has stuck with them the entire year. While he hasn’t seen any action this year, the Cowboys commitment to him makes us think he’ll eventually become WKU’s first alumni to see snaps at Quarterback in a regular season game.
Volleyball’s NCAA streak ends
All good things must come to an end and unfortunately for WKU volleyball, their recent run of dominance came to an end in 2018. After losing all-time greats Alyssa Cavanaugh and Jessica Lucas from the 2017 team that was a set away from the Sweet 16 (and a win against Kentucky), Travis Hudson had to rebuild for the first time in a while and the Tops struggled to a 20–10 final record, their worst regular season since 1999. The Tops were upset as a #2 seed in the Conference USA tournament by #7 seed Southern Mississippi, ending their streak of NCAA tournament appearances at four and 25 win seasons at 16. While a disappointing result from a program that is used to dominance, Travis Hudson has repeatedly proven that he knows how to reload and after only losing two seniors a bounceback is likely in 2019.
Todd Stewart rumored to leave WKU
In February, rumors that athletic director Todd Stewart was going to leave WKU proved to be false. A Nashville radio interview temporarily caused mass paranoia in Hilltopper Nation as Stewart was rumored to be leaving for an assistant athletic director position or job in a conference league office. Luckily for the Hilltopper faithful, Stewart stayed and has guided the department through a tricky 2018 (more on that later). Here’s to many more years of Stewart steering the ship for the foreseeable future.
WKU Baseball’s late-season collapse leaves the team out of C-USA Tournament
One under the radar program on the Hill that has had a lost decade is the WKU baseball program. The Toppers haven’t had a winning season since 2014 and hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2009.
After bottoming the program out in 2017 (just 16 wins), head coach John Pawlowski appeared to be turning the corner in year three. Despite close losses, the Tops sat at 20–21 (10–9 in C-USA) after a 6–1 win against Louisiana Tech on April 27, in a great position to make WKU’s first Conference USA tournament since joining the league in 2014 (a modest goal for a rebuilding program). What followed was an epic collapse as WKU lost 10 of their next 11 games to not only miss the C-USA tournament but also ruin any momentum that the program was experiencing. Pawlowski enters his fourth year firmly on the hot seat with a C-USA tournament or bust season.
