Hilltoppers are literally in a world of hurt

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For most college basketball teams, there are points in the season where you have to just hold on through a tough stretch, continue to work hard to become better, and hope for a positive result at the end of the challenge.

The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers have reached that precarious point in their 2024-25 season, and it’s anybody’s guess as to what might take place from this point forward.

On Saturday, WKU lost 71-57 at ‘100 Miles of Hate’ rival Middle Tennessee, slipping to 11-7 overall and 2-3 in Conference USA. The Hilltoppers have lost four of their last six games and first-year head coach Hank Plona is now searching for answers in more ways than one.

Not only did Western lose by 14 points to the Blue Raiders, they lost one of their most important players when 6-foot-4 true freshman guard Julius Thedford went down with a dislocated kneecap early in the second half. He had to be helped off the court and did not return to the contest.

Thedford had scored 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting and Western was trailing only 39-36 at the time of his departure. After that, MTSU outscored the Hilltoppers 32-21 and won going away in front of a largely gleeful crowd of 6,152 at the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro.

Arguably Western’s most dynamic and most purely talented player, Thedford is the team’s third-leading scorer (12.4 ppg), and the Hilltoppers could be in trouble without him. Take Thedford’s shooting stats out of the equation and WKU went 17 of 56 from the field (30.4%), including 4 of 23 from 3-point range (17.3%) at MTSU. Frigid.

“I guess the results are as positive as they can be,” Plona said of Thedford’s injury. “There’s no surgery or anything needed, it’s just rehabilitation from here. He’s certainly out for a little bit. I guess these things they say can last anywhere from a week or two to a month or two — we’re hoping Julius can be back in about a month I would say as a random guess.

“Julius has had a great year and was on the verge of taking…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/hilltoppers-literally-world-hurt-102100696.html

Author : Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Publish date : 2025-01-23 10:21:00

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