Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team wraps up the nonconference portion of the schedule with a road trip to Michigan to face the Wolverines on Sunday night at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor.

Although Michigan is a rare opponent for the Hilltoppers – WKU has faced off against the Big Ten program just five times and holds a 3-2 advantage in the all-time series, including wins in the last two meetings – the Wolverines do provide some familiarity to many Hilltopper fans.

It starts at the top with Michigan head coach Dusty May – the Wolverines’ first-year head coach. Prior to his current job, May had a highly successful run in Conference USA at former member Florida Atlantic – in the Owls’ final season in CUSA in 2022-23, May led the program to the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four for the first time ever.

Former FAU standout center Vladislav Goldin, a 7-foot-1 graduate senior, came along with May to Michigan and has settled in as the team’s top player averaging a team-high 13.7 points along with six rebounds per game.

Junior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. (12.5 points, 3.7 rpg), junior guard Tre Donaldson (12.3 ppg) and 7-footer Danny Wolf (11.8 ppg, 10.2 rpg) add scoring punch for the Wolverines.

Michigan (9-3) is coming off an 89-58 home win against Purdue Fort Wayne on Dec. 22 after having lost back-to-back neutral-site games against Arkansas (89-87) and Oklahoma (87-86).

WKU (9-3) has been red hot of late, having won six straight and nine of its last 10 games.

Senior guard Don McHenry has been the spark, with three straight games of 28 points or more following his 29-point outing in the Tops’ 91-71 home win against Kentucky Wesleyan on Dec. 21 at E.A. Diddle Arena.

McHenry leads the Tops in scoring a 18.5 points per game and the Milwaukee native has a 28 made 3-pointers this season.

“Don is a special player,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “The things Don does well are things I can’t teach. Shooting and scoring are part of it, but he has a mental strength, a mental toughness and a confidence about him that exists because of who he is as a young man. He deserves to have all the success he’s having. He works every single day, takes care of his mind, takes care of his body, prepares and watches film – he’s confident in his shot and play-making ability because he practices it and works so hard.”

The Tops have been short-handed for much of their recent run of success, with graduate guard Khristian Lander joining forward Babacar Faye and forward/center Blaise Keita as significant contributors sidelined by injury in the Kentucky Wesleyan game. Plona was hopeful after that win that Lander and Keita – who hasn’t played since a brief cameo against Marshall on Nov. 30 – will be available for Sunday’s 7 p.m. game which will be televised on the Big Ten Network.

Freshman guard Julius Thedford (11.8 points per game) and graduate senior forward Tyrone Marshall Jr. (9.2 ppg) back McHenry’s scoring along with Lander (11.1 ppg) and Faye (15.2 ppg).

“We’re not even to the midway point – we’re 13 games into a 31-game season and we’re hoping to play a bunch more after,” Plona said. “We’re just trying to get better day by day, week by week. We we started the season, we thought we came back together to try to make the NCAA Tournament and we knew that we could have to improve from where we were at the end of last year.

“Obviously there’s some new pieces, we’re a different team. We’re a different team. We’ve had different experiences. We’re playing a slightly different style – there’s some similarities but there’s some differences too. So we’ve had to grow and to these guys have bought into some certain things on both ends of the floor that hopefully can make the next step from where we were last year.”