GameDay Central | Game Notes

RUSTON ââ'¬" The Louisiana Tech men's basketball team will get the second half of the Conference USA schedule underway on Thursday night when they play host to WKU inside the Thomas Assembly Center on Karl Malone Court at 7 p.m.

The matchup will be televised by BeIN Sports with Mike Gleason (play-by-play), Jason Capel (analyst) and Andrea Cespedes (reporter) calling the action.

After dropping last week's two road games, LA Tech (14-8, 6-3 C-USA) finds itself in a three-way tie for third in the league standings at the halfway point.

The Bulldogs recently suffered a 71-61 defeat at league-leader Middle Tennessee. Despite playing without its second-leading scorer/top defenders in Jacobi Boykins, LA Tech was still in the game late with it being tied with less than four minutes to go.

The 'Dogs ultimately ran out of gas as the Blue Raiders finished the game on a 14-4 run. For the 19th time in his career, redshirt senior Erik McCree led the team in both scoring and rebounding with 16 points and eight points.

Freshman Jalen Harris stepped into the starting lineup in place of Boykins and registered 15 points, the seventh time this season he has scored in double figures.

McCree and Harris continue to be two of the three players who are averaging double-digit points. McCree leads the way with 17.0 points per game and Harris is at 10.9 points per game.

Getting Boykins back into the lineup for this week will be much-needed. The junior shooting guard currently ranks fourth in the league in three-point percentage (41.8) and first in steals per game (2.2).

Under new head coach Rick Stansbury, WKU (11-11, 5-4 C-USA) has been a very streak team this season. They won their first three conference games to extend their winning streak to five at the time, but dropped their next four. They were able to get back on track this past week at home though, posting a 65-62 win over UTEP and an 81-66 victory versus UTSA.

The Hilltoppers have four guys who have started all four games this season. Their scoring comes primarily from the trio of Que Johnson (14.5), Justin Johnson (13.8) and Pancake Thomas (13.4).

The forward Johnson was a preseason all-conference selection. He currently has seven double-doubles on the season, his seventh coming against the Roadrunners with 21 points and 10 boards.

LA Tech and WKU were league foes in the Sun Belt Conference for 10 years and became league foes again in 2014 when the Hilltoppers joined the Bulldogs in Conference USA.

This will be the 31st meeting in the series (WKU leads 16-14) which is the second most of any C-USA opponent for the 'Dogs. LA Tech is 6-6 at home against WKU but has won four straight in the TAC.

Two of the last three matchups have gone into overtime, including last season when the Bulldogs lost, 96-90, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

The game can be heard live on the LA Tech Sports Network on KXKZ 107.5 FM (Ruston) as well as on the LA Tech X Mobile app. The "Voice of the Bulldogs" Dave Nitz will call the play-by-play and Jack Thigpen will provide analysis.

Twitter users can receive live in-game updates by following @LATechHoops.