WKU looking to be "Toppers" of the Hill in CUSA

WKU 21-4 Under Michelle Clark-Heard

Pardon, if you will...today's slight deviation from UofL women's sports. Former UofL assistant coach (and current WKU head coach) Michelle Clark-Heard and former UofL great and current assistant coach Candyce Bingham are having a season to remember "up on the Hill" in Bowling Green at Western Kentucky University. 

Toss in ex UofL assistants Margaret Richards and Greg Collins who are assistants at WKU and this is..in theory...basically a UofL women's sports article about former Cardinal coaches and players.  

Things are hopping on the Hill. 

WKU is 21-4 on the season and 10-2 in Conference USA. Not

much is left of the old CUSA that the Cards were a part of...but the Hilltoppers are involved in a three-way dog fight for the conference lead. Middle Tennessee State is atop the leader board at 11-2, Cardinal fans will remember Southern Miss...the Golden Eagles are 10-3 in CUSA play and WKU sits at 10-2. 

Michelle Clark-Heard's red towel wavers can determine their fate in the rankings in a showdown with visiting MTSU at the E.A. Diddle Arena in a Saturday 2 p.m. CST battle. Before that, they'll host UAB on Thursday night...another team that UofL followers will remember. 


With a little luck, WKU could be 23-2.

They suffered a one-point loss at UTSA and two-point home loss to Southern Miss. Mississippi State downed the Hilltoppers in Starksville by 11 in the non-conference part of the schedule and Louisville handled Gooch and Govan by 21 in the KFC YUM! Center. 

In all fairness, it was an exhausted WKU squad that took on Walz's bunch. The Louisville game was their fourth in eight days...the Toppers getting to the finals of the Preseason WNIT prior to facing UofL. 

Alexis Govan and Chastity Gooch are the leaders of the Big Red's ballers. They have scored an identical 427 points in 25 games...good for a 17.1 ppg average. They've been the backbone of a team that Michelle Clark-Heard took over in 2012 that had less than desirable success over several years prior to her arrival.

Clark-Heard is getting it done with Kentucky home-grown talent. 

Micah Jones is from Greensburg, Kendall Noble hails from Hazard. Kierra Muhammad is out of Lexington and Ivy Brown comes out of Hodgenville. Gooch played at Franklin-Simpson and Jalynn McClain was a star at Jeffersonville High school...right across the Ohio River from Louisville. 

"What Michelle Clark-Heard has done is instilled pride

back in Western Kentucky.... Now with Michelle Clark-Heard, with the passion and pride she has, because she was a player at Western Kentucky, she is bringing that back to Bowling Green."

ESPN's Carolyn Peck

What they need now is fan support. WKU averages 1797 for home games. To bolster that, WKU is offering free tickets to anyone who wears red into participating IGA stores and asks for a ticket for the MTSU game. The first 1000 fans in the door will get a exclusive t-shirt. The first 1000 students in their seats get free pizza from Pizza Hut.

We see good things continuing for Michelle and her squad in the future. We hope that they take down a good MTSU squad Saturday night. Michelle is doing it the right way and we'd love to see them win the CUSA crown, get a bid to the NCAA this year and make a big run. She's won 20+ games each year she's been there. Not even Jeff Walz can say that. 

Good times and great hoops have returned to the E.A. Diddle Arena. Spurred on by a UofL contingent that helped build the Cardinals to national prominence.  

Big Red.. the loveable WKU mascot deserves nothing less.

The classic 1977 release 'Aja' by Steely Dan contains the lyrics:

"Up on the hill..they think I'm OK"

We'd agree here at CARDINAL COUPLE.



paulie