1. Team Reset. Beleaguered coach Ken McDonald was retained last Spring, partially because a raft of highly touted freshmen were slated to arrive on the Hill this past season. Past recruiting gambles had been hit and miss at best, but this class looked solid with highly rated players (George Fant, Derek Gordon) and under the radar steals (T.J. Price, Kevin Kaspar). The other newcomers all had potential. And, even with a bit of a snag related to summer work, they all got to campus. Whatever Ken McDonald’s legacy is (and history will not be kind), he gets some credit for recruiting a solid foundation of freshmen. While the problems with the “Team Reset” approach are well-documented, this part of Team Reset worked.

2. Team Downward Spiral. The season started with some unexpected suspensions. Once the Tops reached full strength, things went as expected for a while. The freshmen played good defense and played hard, but struggled to score (all hallmarks of this version of the Hilltoppers). Eventually, the defense faded, the offense did not improve, and losses at IUPUI and at home to Furman and FIU would keep people out of Diddle in droves. The administration fired Ken McDonald on January 6, 2012. At this stage, many were worried that the good part of the Reset (the raft of talented freshmen) would be blown apart at season’s end as well.

3. Team Interim. Ray Harper was named interim coach and while most expected solid support for Coach Harper, few expected to nearly triple attendance in two days from a pre-firing Thursday game to a post-firing Saturday game (the first of a few Harper miracles). Team Interim did not play great basketball for several games, but they played with renewed energy and fire. They lost at home to Troy, were blown out at North Texas, and were being ravaged by Denver at halftime. But, the second half at Denver is when the downward spiral ended. The Tops played a great second half, and while they still lost the game, Team Downward Spiral pulled out of the nosedive and started to improve quickly.

4. Team Restoration. The Tops came home from Denver and thrashed West Division-leading (and eventual division champ) UALR. The Tops would steadily improve, even though they kicked away a few late leads and would-be wins, as freshman-laden teams are wont to do. Support for interim coach Ray Harper swelled to tidal proportions and his hire seemed inevitable just a few weeks into his tenure. He would be named head coach on February 19, and the team then went 7-1 to close the season. Despite the youth, inexperience, and deficiencies of this team, they put together a tremendous run to close the season. This included wins over Sun Belt regular season champs Middle Tennessee on a senior night sellout in Diddle Arena as well as tourney victories over FIU, UALR, Denver, and North Texas. The Tops put icing on the cake by making the NCAA tournament and collecting a win over Mississippi Valley State before fighting admirably in a loss to overall top seed Kentucky.

So, while history will look at the season as an enigmatic one (losing season, but an NCAA win), those who lived it will likely remember the incredibly wide range of emotions experienced in 2011-12. For my part, the emotional cycle went something like this : hope, disappointment, fear, deep concern, hope, love, disbelief, joy, wild optimism. For me, the two lasting images for the 2011-12 Toppers are these: 1) the empty seats of Diddle Arena at the UL-Lafayette “6 on 5” loss, and 2) the dogpile of Toppers in a rain of confetti at midcourt after winning the Sun Belt tourney (especially senior Kahlil McDonald!).

It is impossible to rein in the optimism for next year. Of course, with so many young guys, the first question is “How many stick?” While coach Harper has to recruit new pieces, a continuing part of any head coach’s job is keeping the current guys on the roster. If that happens, and the Tops add a couple of pieces, 2012-13 expectations will run absolutely wild this summer and next fall. WKU returns everyone except senior guard and Sun Belt tourney hero Kahlil McDonald.

And, the real reason for optimism rests on more than just the roster. Ray Harper worked some magic with this team, and he did it some ways that are sustainable. Guys dropped excess weight and changed their bodies in just a few weeks. Nearly overnight, his team stopped turning the ball over so much. His team got to the free throw line a lot and made a lot of them. His team defended like crazy on the perimeter. That is an effective and sustainable identity for WKU. It is hard not to “stand up and cheer” when one thinks about how the team will look and perform with an entire offseason to develop under the “ol’ ball coach from Bremen.”

It feels like a restoration. It feels preordained. It feels right. And, truly, based on the last 15 games of 2011-12, it is more than a feeling (apologies to Boston). There is statistical and observable evidence that it is already happening. There will likely be a few setbacks along the way, but there is an air of inevitability regarding the ascension of WKU basketball.

And, we’ve only just begun.

Good thing the sophomores already have plenty of NCAA tournament experience to share.

Jones had 22 points and 10 rebounds, Lamb scored 16 and top-seeded Kentucky began its quest for an eighth national title with an 81-66 victory over Western Kentucky on Thursday night.

“For this to be the first NCAA game for us, freshmen are usually — well I know I was last year — just a little nervous about all the pressure put on us, and it wasn’t even as much pressure last year as it is this year,” Jones said. “I just wanted to tell everybody to have fun and run. We just got going from there.”

On a day when Syracuse nearly became the first No. 1 seed ever to lose to a 16, the Wildcats (33-2) clearly relished their growing role as favorites. Freshman and player of the year candidate Anthony Davis added 16 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks for Kentucky, which was never seriously threatened.

“I’ve got a good team and good players,” said Kentucky coach John Calipari, who never mentioned the Orange’s struggles against UNC-Asheville to his team. “Let’s worry about us playing as well as we can play; if that’s not good enough, then it’s done.”

Jones surprised many when he came back to Kentucky after his freshman year, and he has struggled at times this season with a finger injury and a diminished role because of coach Calipari’s third No. 1 recruiting class. But the sophomores — Jones and Lamb — led the way on a team that’s built a reputation this season as being one of the best defensive teams in the nation.

“Last year, they went through a lot. We made it to the Final Four. We had a lot tough games; we’ve been in a lot of intense games. I feel like they’ve experienced almost as much as any senior,” senior Darius Miller said. “Making it to the Final Four, not everybody gets the chance to experience that. They know what it takes just as well as I do.”

Freshman T.J. Price scored 16 of his 21 points in the first half to help Western Kentucky (16-19) get off to a hot start that briefly silenced the decidedly UK crowd. The Hilltoppers carried an improbable seven-game winning streak into the matchup with the Wildcats.

But the Wildcats, the No. 1 overall seed playing out of the South Regional, began overwhelming Western Kentucky late in the first half, taking advantage of a team that acknowledged before the game it was probably running on fumes.

That didn’t mean the Hilltoppers didn’t keep it entertaining early.

Kentucky raced out to a 10-0 lead in the first 3 minutes before Western Kentucky answered with 12 straight points, capped by Price’s deep 3-pointer over Miller.

Then, Kentucky began to pull away.

Marquis Teague, who finished with 12 points, hit a jumper. Jones followed Teague’s miss with a follow-up slam, and Lamb made a 3 from the left corner that put Kentucky ahead 45-26.

The Hilltoppers went the final 4:33 of the first half without a field goal, culminating with Davis blocking Teeng Akol’s 3-point attempt just before the halftime horn.

Western Kentucky, which got 13 points apiece from freshman George Fant and Kahlil McDonald and 12 from freshman Derrick Gordon, went on to shoot 39.7 percent, compared to 55.6 percent by the Wildcats with Jones and Davis scoring in bunches down low.

“You can’t really guard Terrence if he’s playing his A-game throughout the whole game,” Lamb said. “If Terrence keeps doing that, we’ll go far in this tournament.”

Even with all the talent, Western Kentucky coach Ray Harper believes Kentucky is still missing a piece.

“For them, if they want to advance and win a national championship, going to have to shoot the ball better from perimeter,” Harper said. “But they’re talented; they’re extremely talented. ”

Kentucky hasn’t won the title since 1998, and Calipari’s first two Big Blue teams have gotten close, with a loss in the regional finals and the national semifinals respectively.

But the grand prize has eluded Calipari, who won his 500th game in the eyes of the NCAA on Thursday after 42 wins were vacated from his Final Four years with Massachusetts and Memphis. His on-court record stands at 542-154.

Connecticut knocked Kentucky out in the national semifinals last year. When the defending champion Huskies were shown on the big screen, they were loudly booed by the fans who made the 75-mile journey west to Louisville.

Kentucky will face eighth-seeded Iowa State or ninth-seeded UConn in the third round Saturday.

The Hilltoppers came in as a 26-point underdog, by far the longest of long shots in this round, after a series of comebacks that culminated with Tuesday night’s NCAA-record 16-point rally in the final 5 minutes over Mississippi Valley State with President Barack Obama in attendance.

The Wildcats quickly made sure Bradley remained the only sub-.500 team in history to win twice in the tournament when it accomplished the feat in 1955 in a 24-team field. Even so, Harper and the Hilltoppers made the most of the spotlight over the last three days.

“They went up versus the No. 1 team in the country, and they didn’t back down a step,” Harper said. “I’m excited about where we’re going.”

The only team with a losing record in the NCAA tournament got it started with a classic March comeback.

In front of a presidential audience, no less.

T.J. Price’s three-point play with 33 seconds left completed a furious rally from a 16-point deficit, and Western Kentucky held on for a 59-58 victory over Mississippi Valley State on Tuesday night.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron had front-row seats to see the tournament open with a ragged game that had an engrossing finish.

The Hilltoppers (16-18) are the longest of long shots, the only squad in the 68-team field with a losing record. They turned up the full-court pressure in the last 5 minutes, overcoming a 16-point deficit with a comeback that won over the crowd at University of Dayton Arena.

After the buzzer sounded, Obama and Cameron headed out, fans still buzzing over what had just happened. Somehow, the Hilltoppers won despite shooting 30 percent from the field and turning it over 28 times.

Madness indeed.

Western Kentucky moves on to play Kentucky — the top seed in the South Regional — on Thursday in Louisville, an all-Bluegrass game for the second round.

MVSU (21-13) caught the president’s eye while pulling ahead, but couldn’t close it out. Kevin Burwell scored 20 points and locked eyes with the president after swishing a 3-pointer while the Delta Devils built their big lead. Obama smiled back.

Obama — a huge basketball fan who fills out an NCAA bracket each year — spent a lot of time explaining the nuances of the game to Cameron. Obama has picked Kentucky as one of his Final Four teams.

A smaller school from a corner of the commonwealth became the star of the First Four.

The Hilltoppers were the losers’ favorite in the bracket — the first team since Coppin State in 2009 to make it to the tournament with a losing record.

And that didn’t even begin to tell their story.

A team featuring seven freshmen lost 11 of its first 16 games. The low point came on Jan. 5, when Louisiana-Lafayette somehow managed to get six players on the floor for the winning shot in overtime. And that wasn’t the worst indignity that day. Only 2,137 fans took advantage of a $1 ticket promotion, showing that very few considered the Hilltoppers worth a buck.

The next day, coach Ken McDonald was fired, replaced by assistant Ray Harper. The Hilltoppers responded by losing their next three games.

Slowly, they grew form a young, bad team into one that found its stride at tournament time. They won four games in four days for the Sun Belt Conference title and its automatic berth.

And here they were on Tuesday, opening the NCAA tournament before a presidential audience that seemed to add to both teams’ jitters at the outset.

There was no avoiding the enormity. During the first timeout, photographers from the White House press corps went on the court to snap photos. The two referees on that side of the court shook the president’s hand.

At one point, Obama explained a goaltending call to the prime minister — the only really good play in the sloppy opening minutes. Western Kentucky missed 11 of its first 13 shots and had five turnovers, helping the Delta Devils pull ahead 11-5.

At that point, it might have reminded the president of some of those pick-up games he plays for fun in Washington.

Burwell took the game into his hands at the start of the second half. He made sure he got the president’s attention after hitting a 3 in front of him, turning to make an eye connection.

He had a chance to tie the game in the closing seconds, shooting another 3 in front of Obama. It missed and Cor-J Cox had a putback at the buzzer that left the Delta Devils a point short.

The first meeting between the two schools was in Athens. Ga. in the 1971 NCAA Tournament when Hilltopper All-American Jim McDaniels led Western to an 107-83 rout of the Wildcats. The next matchup came in the second round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament in Charlotte, NC with UK pulling out a 71-64 victory. The last meeting between the Hilltoppers and Wildcats came in 2001 when Western traveled to Rupp Arena to face Kentucky in the opening round of the NABC Classic. The Chris Marcus-led Hilltoppers shocked the Cats 64-52 on their homecourt.

Below are video clips from the 2001 matchup as well as the two NCAA games.

Should the Toppers win the game, they will move on to Louisville on Thursday for a first round matchup with the University of Kentucky, the overall # 1 seed in the tournament.

The game with MVSU will be the fourth all-time meeting between the two schools. Western is 3-0 in the series with the Delta Devils with the last meeting coming on December 18, 1997. The Hilltoppers won that game 75-66 at E.A. Diddle Arena.

The trio led the Toppers to an 18-9 record and a trip to the NIT in Madison Square Garden in New York. After defeating Fordham 57-53 in the opening round Western fell to a very talented Army team 58-54 in the quarterfinals. Army was led by a former Kentucky All-State player by the name of Mike Silliman.

Here is some game action complete with play-by-play from Ken Givens from that matchup.
 

The following video is a 10 minute highlight reel of that memorable season.

The game was nip and tuck throughout the first half and most of the second before the Mean Green pulled away for a 13-point lead midway through the second half. 7 straight points by  Tournament MVP George Fant pulled the Toppers closer and a basket by Teeng Akol tied the game again at 59. North Texas responded to regain a 5-point advantage 66-61 but a three-pointer by Kahlil McDonald gave Western a lead they wouldn’t relinquish at 70-68. McDonald later sank two free throws to secure the victory and send the Hilltoppers to  their most improbable NCAA Tournament appearance in school history.

Junior center Teeng Akol led WKU in scoring with 23 points while freshman George Fant added 17 points and senior Kahlil McDonald chipped in with 14.

There will be a welcome back celebration for the team Wednesday at 4 pm at the Knicely Center on the WKU South Campus.

The seventh-seeded Hilltoppers will now meet fifth-seeded North Texas Tuesday night at 6 pm in the tournament championship game with the winner advancing to the NCAA Tournament. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2. If the Toppers win it will be their 22nd NCAA Tournament appearance in school history.

The game was close throughout with 11 ties and 8 lead changes. The largest lead by either team in the second half was five points.  Denver’s last lead came at 61-60 with 2:36 remaining in the game but the Toppers regained the lead and were able to ice it with free throws down the stretch.

Freshman George Fant led the Toppers in scoring with 19 points while senior Khalil McDonald chipped in with 14 points.

“This was another great college basketball game. Denver is a tremendous basketball team and so well coached, but our kids stuck with what we wanted to do,” said Hilltopper head coach Ray Harper. “We felt like we needed to really get the ball inside. We only attempted eight three-pointers, we took good shots, and once again made plays down the stretch. But with two great basketball teams, I’m just happy we were able to win and advance.”
 
 

The second-year Jazz forward dunked two balls over teammate and close friend Gordon Hayward, paid tribute to Hall of Fame big man Karl Malone with his final slam, then shocked Jazz Nation and himself by winning a fan-only vote to capture the 2012 NBA All-Star slam-dunk contest Saturday at Amway Center.

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