Tops on top: Western Kentucky basketball earns NCAA Tournament bid by winning C-USA Tournament

For the first time since 2013, the Western Kentucky men’s basketball team is going to the NCAA Tournament.

The Hilltoppers earned Conference USA’s automatic bid to March Madness on Saturday night with a 78-71 victory over UTEP in the conference tournament championship game at VBC Probst Arena in Huntsville, Alabama.

Western Kentucky established an early 17-4 lead over UTEP less than eight minutes into the game, but that lead evaporated before halftime. A 20-4 run by the Hilltoppers that stretched across most of the back end of the second half proved to be a difference-maker.

WKU went 3-for-3 during the C-USA Tournament as the No. 3 seed, defeating No. 6 seed New Mexico State, No. 7 seed Middle Tennessee State and No. 5 seed UTEP on its way to securing a spot in the Big Dance.

WKU has appeared in the title game in four of the last six C-USA tournaments, and the Hilltoppers are now 10-7 all-time in conference tournament championship games.

Saturday marked Western Kentucky’s first-ever C-USA Tournament title.

Now 22-11 overall this season, WKU is projected to be a No. 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament by BracketMatrix.

This year will mark WKU’s 24th all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament, including its appearance and third-place finish in the 1971 edition of March Madness that was later vacated.

WKU last won an NCAA Tournament game in 2012 (First Four) and the Hilltoppers last won a game in the round of 64 in 2009.

This week’s sensational run in Huntsville extends an impressive streak for first-year WKU head coach Steve Lutz: He remains undefeated, a perfect 8-0, in conference tournament games as an NCAA Division I head coach.

The 51-year-old Lutz — a longtime college assistant who spent time on the bench at SMU, Creighton and Purdue, among other schools — won the Southland Conference Tournament in both 2022 and 2023 when he was the head coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, prior to being hired in Bowling Green.

Western Kentucky entered the C-USA Tournament on a four-game losing streak, which came after the Hilltoppers had won five conference games in a row.

Lutz has led the Hilltoppers back to the NCAA Tournament in his first season at the school following the resignation of Rick Stansbury (now an assistant coach at Memphis) last March: Stansbury had a 139-89 overall record at WKU but no NCAA Tournament appearances across seven seasons.

According to Lutz’s contract at WKU, which was obtained by the Herald-Leader last year via the Kentucky Open Records Act, Lutz is signed to a deal that runs through June 2027, although the contract features automatic one-year extensions that would keep Lutz under contract through June 2030.

Lutz is paid $650,000 annually, and, among other potential bonuses, would earn an extra $100,000 for getting Western Kentucky to the NCAA Tournament.

“I am not shy about what we are here to do,” Lutz said during his introductory press conference last March. “We’re here to win games. We’re here to win conference championships. We’re here to go to the NCAA Tournament and win games.”

So far, so good on that front.

The state of Kentucky will have three representatives in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, with WKU joining Morehead State (OVC) and Kentucky (SEC). This marks the first time since 2019 the commonwealth will have at least three schools in the men’s NCAA Tournament.

WKU men’s basketball leads country in adjusted tempo

WKU has three players — junior guard Don McHenry (15.2 points), senior guard Brandon Newman (10.5) and fifth-year forward Rodney Howard (10) — averaging at least 10 points per game.

McHenry was named the C-USA Tournament MVP after scoring 25 points in the championship game win over UTEP.

The Hilltoppers also have two players — Newman and junior forward Babacar Faye — averaging at least 5 rebounds per contest.

Lutz has used a deep rotation this season: Eight Hilltoppers currently in the rotation average at least 18 minutes played per game.

Entering Saturday’s championship game, former Pendleton County standout and ex-Cat Dontaie Allen had played in every game for the Hilltoppers, with 13 starts, and was averaging 8.3 points and 3.0 rebounds per game.

Allen was also averaging more than 20 minutes played per contest and led WKU in 3-point shooting (39.7%). But Allen suffered an injury early in Friday’s C-USA Tournament semifinal win over Middle Tennessee State and didn’t return to that game.

Allen didn’t play in the C-USA Tournament title game win over the Miners.

While the Hilltoppers don’t have many standout qualities — either good or bad — in the advanced analytics department, there is one statistic that is telling about how this WKU program plays under Lutz.

Western Kentucky ranks No. 1 in the nation in adjusted tempo, per KenPom. For context, Alabama is No. 9 in this metric and Kentucky is No. 10.

On average, the Hilltoppers take 14.6 seconds per offensive possession, which is the fourth shortest amount in the country.

WKU also does the majority of its scoring from inside the 3-point arc. Only 25% of WKU’s points come via 3-pointers (310th in the nation) while 56.4% of WKU’s points come via two-point field goals (34th in the nation).