With Western Kentucky tipping off its 2021-22 basketball season next Monday night with an exhibition game against Division II program Campbellsville at E.A. Diddle Arena, the Hilltoppers hosted their annual on-campus media day Wednesday to usher in the upcoming campaign.
WKU, which is coming off a 21-8 season that included a Conference USA regular-season championship and a trip to the National Invitational Tournament quarterfinals, brought back a few key players from last year’s team, a handful of transfers and some touted freshmen and is planning to put together another successful season on the hardwood.
“It’s a daily process right now, just trying to keep getting better everyday,” WKU head coach Rick Stansbury said. “We’re trying to get a lot of things in – early. We’re trying to get guys to understand how hard you have to play every possession. That’s the biggest keys.”
The return of guard Josh Anderson for a fifth season highlights the Hilltoppers’ roster, while sophomore point guard Dayvion McKnight and redshirt senior shooting guard Luke Frampton are both back. Anderson averaged 9.3 points and 3.9 rebounds per game in 2020-21, while McKnight averaged 5.8 points, 3.8 assists and 3.6 rebounds and Frampton scored 7.4 points while shooting 41.1% from 3-point range.
“Really, there wasn’t no timeline,” Stansbury said when asked when Anderson knew he was going to return to WKU for another season. “It was pretty obvious … the season was over (after the C-USA championship game loss), and he took it pretty hard. He kind of made his own decision.”
Alongside that returning trio, Stansbury brought in a core of experienced transfers such as forward Jaylen Butz from DePaul (averaged 10.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game last season), guard Keith Williams from Cincinnati (14.3 points and 4.1 rebounds), forward Jairus Hamilton from Maryland (6.5 points and 2.4 rebounds) and 7-foot-5 JUCO center Jamarion Sharp, who’s the tallest player in college basketball.
Freshman guard Zion Harmon, who was a four-star recruit out of high school, and fellow freshman guard Elijah Hughey round out Stansbury’s newcomers heading into the season.
“We’ve got a lot of new guys coming in, so coach is pretty heavy on communicating and talking to each other,” Anderson said. “Everybody is kind of learning each other right now, but I feel like it’s going good.”
WKU will face another challenging schedule this season that features matchups with Minnesota, Memphis, Buffalo, Ole Miss and Louisville. The Hilltoppers – who are 9-6 against Power Five opponents since the start of the 2017-18 season – recorded a big road win over SEC program Alabama last year and have the goal of adding another Power Five victory to their record book in 2021-22.
With the roster they have, the Hilltoppers know they can accomplish that goal.
“I feel like this group, we have a lot more experience than past groups,” Anderson said. “Just a lot of transfers that are fourth-year seniors, fifth-year seniors. We have a lot of players who played a lot of minutes in college ball, so it wasn’t hard for us to come together and mesh because of the experience.”
While the Hilltoppers will play their first preseason tune-up against Campbellsville next Monday, they’ll also host the University of the Cumberlands on Friday night in another exhibition contest. WKU will open its regular season on Tuesday, Nov. 9 vs. Alabama State at Diddle Arena.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Stansbury said. “We’ve got a long way to go, a lot of things to keep getting better at, but I think we’ve made a lot of progress.”
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