Campbellsville University went toe-to-toe with Western Kentucky University in a men's basketball exhibition Sunday at Diddle Arena for 30-plus minutes, but simply ran out of gas late in an 80-57 loss.

"We hung in there. I thought we did a lot of good things. This game was to prepare us for what's coming up, same thing for Western Kentucky. I think both teams come away with what they needed out of this," CU head coach Keith Adkins said. "We just ran out of gas. We did not have enough fuel left in the tank as far as conditioning wise."

Campbellsville displayed a competitive, physical and athletic style of basketball, playing the Hilltoppers in a give-and-take battle. However, Western put together runs of six to seven points every four or five minutes to respond each time the Tigers pulled within a possession or gained the lead.

The Tigers didn't let the Hilltoppers get ahead by more than five points through the first 15 minutes and gained the lead, 24-23, on an and-one play by CU senior JaVaughn Espritt with 5:42 left in the first half. The lead-changer sparked a 13-2 WKU run for its first 10-point lead, 36-26. The Tiger defense held the host team scoreless in the final two minutes of the first half. With two seconds remaining before the break, Bowling Green native Shawn Savage hit a 3-pointer out of a timeout to cut the difference below 10.

"We called the time out and we thought we had a pretty good matchup for Shawn to get free on a screen. We wanted to make sure it was the last shot of the half no matter what. Shawn sold the fake and came off the stagger to put up the shot," Adkins said.

"I hadn't had too many open looks and when I did, I rushed things. In the time out, he drew up the play for me, and I knew I pretty much had to knock this one down, because he had enough confidence in me to take the last shot," said Savage. He hit two more 3's in the second half to finish with nine points.
 

The momentum from Savage's shot carried over to the second half for CU. Campbellsville pulled within two points, 44-42, with 11:32 left to play after a tip in by junior college transfer Brandon Williams. However, the Hilltoppers put together a 10-4 run to build its lead to eight, 54-46 with the help of five straight points by Juan Pattillo.

Brett Crittenden attempted to silence Patillo's run with his second 3-pointer of the game, but fouled the big forward for an old fashion 3-point play on the other end. The play helped spark a long WKU run to pull away from CU in the final minutes, outscoring CU 20-8. Pattillo, who finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, put an exclamation mark on the game with a windmill dunk in the middle of the run. Steffphon Pettigrew, one of only two Hilltoppers who face Campbellsville in 2008, led WKU with 23 points, including 8-of-10 from the free throw line. 

Espritt led CU with 20 points -- only his second 20-point game in a CU uniform. He was shy of a double-double with nine rebounds.

"JaVaughn Espritt played exactly how we need him to. If we can get 20 and nine, we're going to be in pretty good shape," Adkins said.

Second in scoring was CU newcomer Monie Hudson, a former Warren Central High School standout in Bowling Green. He had 10 points for the Tigers, all in the first half.

"I enjoyed coming back here and playing at home. I like this arena. I played here all four years of my high school region. I enjoyed coming back and putting on a show for my family and friends here," Hudson said.

Adkins was pleased of what he saw from his point guard.

"We're going to need Monie to score points for us, but we're also going to need him to make great decisions and we're going to need him to distribute the ball to guys," Adkins said. "I hope we can send him out as a senior with exactly what he was looking for when he came out of high school."

Campbellsville will travel to Stillwater, Okla., Friday to take on former Tiger head coach Travis Ford and his Oklahoma State University Cowboys in its final preseason exhibition. Tip off is 8 p.m. ET.

STATS


NOTES
- This was the third meeting between the two teams in the past four seasons. Western has won all three meetings: 94-67 (Nov. 1, 2007), 62-48 (Nov. 18, 2008) and 80-57 (2010).
- Campbellsville's returners combined for 39 points
- WKU's returners combined for 45 points
- It was the first time CU's Shawn Savage and Monie Hudson played together competitively since playing AAU basketball together in high school.
- WKU is picked first in the Sun Belt Conference East Division preseason coaches' poll
- CU is picked second in the Mid-South Conference preseason coaches' poll
- CU track coach and assistant football coach Joe Stockton was interviewed at halftime during the radio broadcast. He was inducted into the WKU Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 30 for his time as a football and track star for the Hilltoppers.

QUOTES
Keith Adkins - Campbellsville Head Coach
On things to improve ...
"The one thing we didn't do very well that we can do better is get enough 3-pointers off penetration. I thought we made some bad shots and made some poor deicisions on our penetration and that's something we'll show them on film and get completely better at the next time we go out there."

On his team's competitive nature ...
"No matter what our personel is, year-in, year-out, we will not accept not competing. We will not accept going out and playing for the sake of playing. We've built our success around competing. We try to get ourselves ready through practice and through exhibition games to play in the Mid-South Conference ... We learned quickly the strong survive and the physical teams survive in the Mid-South Conference."

Shawn Savage - Campbellsville senior guard from Bowling Green, Ky.
On comparing this WKU game to 2007 or 2008 ...
"This one's probably the best, because I got to play with Monie again. I thought we played pretty good until the last six or seven minutes."

Monie Hudson - Campbellsville senior transfer and Bowling Green, Ky., native
On having his first collegiate start since 2008-09 ...
"I enjoyed it. I had a minor set back last year. It's good to get back in that mentality and having my name called out and being more of a leader on the team."

On the game as a whole ...
"We hung with them most of the way, then we got a little fatigued and starting missing shots and not executing. That's what this game is for. We're going to look at film and know what we've got to do to make everything right. We going to be alright."