BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WDRB) – Facing an FAU team that crashed into the AP Top 25 for the first time in school history earlier in the day, WKU played on even terms for the game’s first 30 minutes before a late run by the Owls gave them a 76-62 win in Diddle Arena.
The loss halted a three-game winning streak for the Hilltoppers (11-7), who continued to play without head coach Rick Stansbury, out dealing with an ongoing medical issue. It was the 16th straight win for No. 24-ranked FAU, which improved to 17-1 on the season, with the lone loss coming at Ole Miss in November.
The crowd of 5,206 was the best of the season at WKU, which had shown signs of life after a 5-game losing streak. A trio of early three-pointers by Luke Frampton gave WKU an early spark and his 13 first-half points had the home team down just on at the half, 34-33.
“Give FAU credit,” interim head coach Phil Cunningham said. “They came into a hostile environment and played really well. They’re an experienced team, they’re tough and physical and they made shots when they needed to make them. All the credit goes to them. They played well. The second credit goes to our fans and this crowd tonight. This was a great crowd in here tonight. Our students came out, they told me this is the biggest student crowd we’ve had in 2-3 years. It was awesome to see them and our other fans, everybody was out there. It was a great atmosphere.”
The second half defense was rebounding. FAU outrebounded the Hilltoppers 24-7 after halftime, which helped spark an 18-5 run midway through the second half that left it in control. FAU took command defensively late, allowing only 4 Hilltopper field goals over the final 13 minutes.
Nicholas Boyd had 16 points to lead FAU and Alijah Martin added 15 off the bench. Martin’s layup with 7:58 left sparked a 7-0 spurt that put FAU up 69-55 down the stretch.
“We just present a number of challenges to teams that also play bigger lineups than ours, just to cover a small lineup like ours,” FAU coach Dusty May said. “We try to use that to our advantage. It’s how we’re built.”
Davion McKnight fought through consistent double-teams to lead WKU with 15 points and 8 rebounds. FAU had 3 players in double figures.
“Everybody’s down right now,” Cunningham said. “Obviously our players and coaches are down, the fans are down, the students are down, we all should be. That’s part of this. It’s a sport, we’re trying to win, we all should be down, starting with us. But like we told our team, we had a bad 15 minutes. It’s tied with 15 minutes to go in the game. They’re a legit top-25 team… They’re legit. After playing them and studying them, they’re legit top-25. They play so well together and they’re tough and physical, and they’re confident right now. But with 15 minutes to go, we’re tied and we had a bad 15 minutes. We told our guys that we’re not going to let those 15 minutes define what’s happened in the last month, almost a month now. Our guys have been terrific through this process, and let’s be real we had a bad 15 minutes in the second half, particularly offensively, and the game got away from us.”
Next up for WKU is a visit to Louisiana Tech on Thursday before playing host to Charlotte on Saturday.
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