BATON ROUGE, La. - AJ Slaughter made his senior debut a memorable one, scoring a career-high 30 points and joining Western Kentucky University's illustrious 1,000-point club in leading the Hilltoppers (1-0) to a 69-65 win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1-1) in the opening round of the 25th Dick's Sporting Good NIT Season Tip-Off at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La.

With his team in a dogfight down the stretch, the Shelbyville, Ky. native took over with 13 minutes to play. Tied 46-46, Slaughter scored 16 of the Topper's next 20 points to take the lead 66-59 with 31 ticks remaining.

With both teams opening hot from the field, it was WKU's defense that helped the Tops open an early 10-point spread. WKU collected three charges on the defense end in the opening six minutes, taking a 12-8 advantage, and capping off an 11-0 run with an offensive stickback from newcomer Cliff Dixon. Junior Sergio Kerusch provided much of the offensive punch in the early going with nine of the team's first 16 points. He finished with 13 points and nine rebounds.

A three-pointer by Patrick Souter at the 10:41 mark snapped a seven-minute scoring drought for Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but WKU again pushed out by double digits at 22-12 on a bucket by Jeremy Evans. The Panthers, however, continued to battle back, connecting on three of their six first-half treys, the last with 59 seconds left in the half by Ricky Franklin, as Wisconsin-Milwaukee reclaimed the lead 31-30.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee came out hitting from long range to begin the second half, as triples from James Eayrs and Franklin gave the Panthers a 37-32 lead. Slaughter countered with a quick slash and score, converting a free throw for the three-point play with 18:08 left to reach 1,000 points for his career.

Franklin would give Wisconsin-Milwaukee its largest lead of the game at 41-35 on a layup with 17:20 left. Franklin finished with 11 points, one of five Panthers in double figures.

Steffphon Pettigrew, who had just two first-half points, scored six-straight and 11 of the team's next 16 points to put the Toppers back in front 46-44 with 12:56 remaining in the game. The junior finished with 13 points and four rebounds on 6-of-12 shooting.

The next eight minutes witnessed three ties and eight lead changes, with no edge larger than two points, until Slaughter got back-to-back buckets to give WKU a 62-57 advantage with 3:25 remaining.

Slaughter finished 10-of-16 from the field including 5-of-10 from long range and 5-of-5 at the stripe. Slaughter's 30 points is the most in a single game by a Hilltopper since Tyrone Brazelton's 31 on March 27, 2008 versus UCLA in the NCAA Sweet 16

Senior transfer Nemanja Milosevic was big in his Hilltopper debut with five points and six rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench.

WKU was edged on the boards 34-32 and committed one more turnover, 15-14, but shot 51.0 percent for the game (25-of-49) while holding the Panthers to 42.6 percent shooting (26-of-61). To close out the game, the Hilltoppers converted 13-of-16 at the line in the second half for 81.3 percent.

Eayrs led Wisconsin-Milwaukee with 13 points while Souter added 12 off the bench. Deonte Roberts and Tony Meier each added 10.

WKU will now face the winner of LSU and Indiana State on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM for the championship of the South Region of the NIT Season Tip-Off, as well as the right to advance to the "First Four" at Madison Square Garden on November 25-27.