BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — With three wins in its last four games, WKU will attempt to carry the momentum over to its stiffest conference test of the season so far Thursday night at league-leading Middle Tennessee.

The Blue Raiders, who enter the game with a 21-4 record and a 10-1 mark in league play, feature the conference’s top scoring offensive, second-best defense and one of its top players in LaRon Dendy.

The Hilltoppers have dominated the all-time series between the two, who also competed in the Ohio Valley Conference together, but it has been all Middle Tennessee lately. The Blue Raiders have won four-straight by an average of 9.5 points and have held the Hilltoppers to just 54.8 points per game in those four losses.

The current stretch comes on the heels of WKU winning seven-in-a-row in the series from 2006-09 and is just the fifth time in the last 81 years of the rivalry that Middle Tennessee has won back-to-back games.

After Thursday, WKU wraps up a stretch of six-of-eight on the road at Troy on Saturday afternoon.

QUICK SHOTS
• Middle Tennessee’s current four-game winning streak against WKU is tied with Denver’s for the longest Hilltopper drought against a current member of the conference.
• WKU has lost 11 of its last 14 games away from home.
• George Fant has led WKU in rebounding in four-straight games.
• The Hilltoppers are 5-0 this season when allowing fewer than 60 points in a game and 3-12 when surrendering 60-79 points.
• WKU, South Alabama and Arkansas State are the only Sun Belt Conference schools with two players in the top-10 in rebounding this season (Gordon, 8th; Fant, 10th).
• WKU is 3-6 in its last nine regular-season games versus the Sun Belt Conference East Division, and five of WKU’s last six regular-season games are against the east.
• WKU is averaging 12.1 assists and 12.6 turnovers in the last six games, compared to 10.7 assists and 16.8 miscues on average in the first 16 games of the season.
• Jamal Crook is averaging 5.5 assists per game in the last five, which is up from 2.2 assists per game in the five prior to that.
• Since the start of the 2010-11 season, WKU is 15-6 when Jamal Crook has at least four assists and 8-2 when he and Kahlil McDonald combine to dish out at least eight assists.
• Derrick Gordon is one of two Sun Belt Conference freshmen to be averaging at least 11.0 points per game so far this season.

THE LAST TIME OUT
A season-best 6,407 packed E.A. Diddle Arena Saturday night, the ninth-largest home crowd in the last five seasons, and the Hilltopper faithful saw WKU shoot a season-high 54.7 percent from the field and beat division rival South Alabama, 75-66. The Hilltoppers also outrebounded the Jaguars, who entered the game as the conference’s best rebounding team, by three. Jamal Crook was outstanding in all facets for WKU Saturday night, scoring a career-high 24 points, dishing out six assists and swiping two steals. The junior missed his first shot of the game 1:09 into the contest and proceeded to go 9-for-9 the rest of the way. Teeng Akol had 13 points, five rebounds and four blocks, and George Fant added 12 and eight. The trio was a combined 20-for-25 shooting in the contest.

HILLTOPPER INDIVIDUAL TRENDS
• Jamal Crook is second on the team in scoring in his 14 starts this season (10.9 ppg).
• Jamal Crook is averaging 14.3 points per game in the last four games and is shooting 51.2 percent from the floor in that span (22-of-43).
• T.J. Price is averaging 9.8 points per game on the road this season and has hit 40.0 of his three-point tries.
• Jamal Crook has had 10 10-plus point scoring games in his last 14 after entering this season with just one in two previous years.
• A freshman has led WKU in scoring in 13 of the last 15 contests.
• Nigel Snipes has converted on 12-straight free throws.
• Derrick Gordon has played at least 30 minutes in 19 of the last 22 games.
• George Fant has had 13 games of at least six points and six rebounds this season.
• In WKU’s 15 losses in 2011-12, Derrick Gordon, T.J. Price and Jamal Crook have combined for 6.4 turnovers per game.

HILLTOPPER TEAM TRENDS
• In the last four games, WKU is shooting 41.0 percent as a team and holding opponents to 59.2 points per game while forcing an average of over 15 turnovers a contest.
• The Hilltoppers are second in the Sun Belt Conference in free throw percentage, third in assist-to-turnover ratio and fourth in scoring and rebounding margin in conference games.
• WKU is in the top-half of 14 of 21 conference statistical categories in league games.
• WKU is shooting 76.5 percent from the free throw line (52-for-68) in the final five minutes of conference games.
• The Hilltoppers have had 16 or fewer turnovers in 12 of the last 16 games.
• Derrick Gordon is the only Hilltopper to have started each of the first 23 games of the year.
• The Hilltoppers have used 12 different starting lineups in 23 games played.
• Five different Hilltoppers have missed at least one of the first 23 games of the season due to injury, and three others have been unavailable for games at various points.
• WKU has started four freshmen eight times this season (2-6 record when doing so).
• Seven different players have led WKU in scoring this season after four did so in 2010-11.
• WKU has scored 60 or fewer points seven times in 23 games played this season, bettering its total from the entire 2010-11 campaign (6).
• WKU’s 15 losses in 2011-12 have come by an average of 11.3 points, and its eight wins have been by an average of 7.3 per.
• WKU has faced a double-digit deficit at one point in 26 of its last 31 losses dating back to the start of the 2010-11 season.
• In 55 games since the start of the 2010-11 season, WKU has trailed at halftime 32 times (5-27 in those games).
• The Hilltoppers have advanced to the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament seven-straight times and in 20 instances in 29 years as a member of the league dating to 1983.