The Toppers took a first-half shove from both Arkansas State and a raucous Convocation Center crowd.

But senior guard A.J. Slaughter decided to push back, and Western (17-12, 10-6 Sun Belt Conference) flexed enough muscle to pull off a 78-76 overtime win.

Slaughter scored 13 points in overtime — 21 for the game — fighting past an 0-for-9 start to lead the Toppers in points in 42 minutes played.

Not bad for a guy who almost called in sick.

“I was feeling kind of bad when I woke up this morning,” Slaughter told Western’s Big Red Radio Network. “But the win makes me feel better.”

A victory marked the Toppers’ second straight road win — the only time they’ve accomplished that this season — as well as pushed coach Ken McDonald to 2-1 in overtime games as a head coach.

McDonald said he couldn’t have done it without a superb effort from Slaughter and junior forward Steffphon Pettigrew.

“Some guys really stepped up in the second half,” McDonald said. “Obviously you’ve got A.J. hitting some ridiculous shots at the end. He’s got that savvy and he wants the ball in his hands. Steffphon Pettigrew was also outstanding in the second half.”

Arkansas State (15-12, 10-6 Sun Belt) looked to be in full control, up 72-67 after freshman guard Brandon Reed scored two of his game-high 30 points with 2:05 to go in overtime.

But Slaughter wasn’t done.

The senior scored Western’s final 11 points, including a go-ahead 3-pointer that pushed the Toppers ahead 77-76 with 19 seconds left.

Slaughter said he owed it to his team for keeping pace with Arkansas State while he struggled through most of the game.

“It was a great overtime for me,” Slaughter said. “I told my teammates after the game, ‘Thanks for carrying me all the way through overtime.’ It really wasn’t my night tonight.”

Western trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half before rallying to tie at 43-43 with 11:32. The lead changed six times, and Reed tied the game at 63 all to send it into overtime.

“Those types of situations are really going to help you down the stretch,” McDonald said. “In tournament play, it could very well come down to close games night in and night out. You’ve got to be seasoned to win close games.”

Pettigrew sank a pair of free throws with 10:32 to play, placing him alongside Slaughter and senior forward Jeremy Evans on Western’s 1,000-point scoring list.

The Toppers are back at 7 p.m. Thursday night against Florida Atlantic for the second of three road games to end the season. McDonald said the Toppers thrived off an intense crowd in Jonesboro, Ark., Saturday — perhaps the solution for their road woes this season.

“It might not be the same crowd, but we’ve got to keep that same level of intensity,” McDonald said. “I think the guys liked playing in this kind of environment today.”

Head Coach Ken McDonald made many lofty predictions before this season started — predictions that relied on Western playing team defense and, in turn, taking better shots on the offensive end.

That’s the kind of game the Toppers played against Troy last Saturday, holding the Trojans to 15.8 percent 3-point shooting while dropping 12 3-pointers themselves at a 46.2 percent click.

The challenge now, according to senior guard A.J. Slaughter, is doing it again when Western (13-11) meets Houston (11-11) at 7 p.m. Tuesday night in Diddle Arena for both squads’ final non-conference game of the 2009-2010 regular season.

Slaughter said the Toppers have plenty of positives to expand on from last weekend.

“This is a tape that we can always look back on to say, ‘Guys, we can do it. We did it here against one of the top teams in the league,’” Slaughter said. “It’s really a big confidence boost knowing we can do it, but now the challenge is doing it over and over again.”

Although Western will step out of Sun Belt Conference play for a night, the words “confidence” and “pride” were thrown around by junior forward Sergio Kerusch after the Troy game. The Trojans entered leading the Sun Belt’s East Division and left trailing Middle Tennessee.

The Toppers sit in fourth place, three games behind the Blue Raiders. But in Kerusch’s mind, Western should still play as if it’s in first.

“We’re still champions from last year, and we’re just going to go for it and fight and take it one game at a time,” Kerusch said. “We still believe in us, and we’re going to continue to bond together as family and go do what we do.”

Houston is led by a duo of senior guards — Aubrey Coleman and Kelvin Lewis — who combine to score more than 40 points per game.

McDonald said Western can run with the guard-oriented Cougars if the Toppers can replicate their first-half performance from last Saturday, when the Toppers forced 18 deflections in 20 minutes.

“I really think that your defense takes a lot of pressure off the offensive end,” McDonald said. “I really think that if you can make it hard for the other team to score, you’re in a position to have a lead — build a lead — and you have a lot more confidence on the offensive end because every possession isn’t so much pressure to score the basketball.”

Western has plenty of chances to get the bitter taste of defeat out of its mouth, playing a stretch of four games in a week. A showdown with the Cougars marks the second of those four games — which junior forward Steffphon Pettigrew said is an ideal time for the Toppers to put a collective foot down.

“We were just tired of losing,” Pettigrew. “We’ve been getting at each other in practice, and it showed (against Troy). That was by far our best effort — a complete 40 minutes.”

Western senior guard A.J. Slaughter is fouled by Troy guard Brandon Hazzard in the first half of Saturday's game. Western defeated the Trojans in their second meeting this season, 87-69. TANNER CURTIS/HERALD.

Western looks like an NCAA Tournament team some days. Other times, it plays like a mid-pack Sun Belt Conference team.

In their latest contest, the Toppers provided a reminder that they — not division-leading Troy — are the defending Sun Belt Champions.

Western (13-11, 6-6 Sun Belt) led from wire to wire in a 87-69 win over the Trojans Saturday night. Sparked by junior forward Steffphon Pettigrew’s 25 points and seven rebounds, the Toppers pulled away to lead by as many as 25 points, capping a 14-4 run with 13:11 to play in the second half.

Senior guard A.J. Slaughter said it all started on the defensive end.

“It took pressure off our offense,” Slaughter said. “Some shots really didn’t mean as much if, say, the game were close.”

It’s defense — for all 40 minutes — that Head Coach Ken McDonald has been looking for. And against Troy, he finally got it.

“All the hustle plays were there tonight,” McDonald said. “That just shows you you’re active defensively and you’re all over the place.

“I really think if you could make it hard for the other team to score, you’re in a position to have a lead — build a lead — and you have a lot more confidence on the offensive end because every possession isn’t so much pressure to score the basketball.”

Troy (13-11, 8-5 Sun Belt) fell in front of 6,531 fans at Diddle Arena, as Westen prevented a sweep by the visiting Trojans. The Toppers lost at Troy on Jan. 21.

Western broke out of the gate to a 7-0 lead and ran away to an 18-point first-half advantage, walking into the locker room up 43-28 at the break. Slaughter started the scoring in the second half with a quick layup, and the Toppers didn’t stop until the final buzzer.

Freshman guard Caden Dickerson scored a career-high 15 points, including a four-point play with 6:46 to play that pushed the lead to 16 points. Western hopped into a timeout after that, and junior forward Steffphon Pettigrew said it was then that the Toppers decided to put their foot down.

“We got into the huddle and we just told them, ‘don’t hold up, just keep going at it,’” Pettigrew said. “It was a big win. We needed it. Our confidence is going to build from here on out.”

Western shot 43.8 percent on field goals for the game — junior forward Sergio Kerusch’s first home contest back since he went down with a broken right foot on Dec. 18. Kerusch scored 15 points in 23 minutes, leaving the floor with an ovation at the 3:39 mark of the second half.

“For the second game back, I think (Kerusch) really showed improvement,” McDonald said. “He’s getting his timing back. He’s getting his wind back.”

Saturday’s game marked the first of four in just a week’s time — three of which are home games. The Toppers return to take on Houston at 7 p.m. Tuesday in their final non-conference game of the regular season.

Senior forward Jeremy Evans puts up two points in the first half to give Western an early lead against the University of New Orleans on Saturday afternoon in Diddle Arena. Western won 76-56. CHRIS WILSON/Herald

If the Toppers were still looking for leadership heading into Saturday’s game against New Orleans, they may have found some in two of the youngest players on the court.

Freshman guards Jamal Crook and Caden Dickerson recorded career highs in points to lead Western (12-10, 5-5 Sun Belt Conference) over the Privateers 76-56 in Diddle Arena, snapping a five-game losing streak that dates back to Jan. 18.

Head Coach Ken McDonald, who has called for someone besides senior guard A.J. Slaughter to step up at the guard spot, said he was happy with how the freshmen handled themselves on the defensive end. He added that this was one step closer to putting together a 40-minute effort, and that started on the defensive end.

“Jamal Crook was terrific with his deflections and how active he is. You see how long and athletic he is when he wants to be,” McDonald said. “When you have guards that are willing to get out there and pressure and do things, it kind of energizes everybody.

“I thought, overall, there was just a lot more intensity on the defensive end.”

Dickerson tallied 14 points in 34 minutes played, and Crook finished with 11 points in 24 minutes in a performance that he self-graded as “outstanding.”

Slaughter agreed.

“Yeah, I’ll give it to him — he played a real good game,” Slaughter said.

Crook considered his game a statement, both to McDonald that he’s a trustworthy point guard and his teammates, who have seen Crook come from the bench to take senior guard Anthony Sally’s starting spot away.

But that started, according to Crook, by listening to some advice.

“The main thing was that Coach wanted me to come out with high energy, so I did that,” Crook said. “I just wanted to show the guys what I was capable of doing as a freshman coming in.”

New Orleans (7-15, 2-9 Sun Belt) took a 43-36 deficit into halftime — a margin Western only increased throughout the second half.

Slaughter hit a three-pointer on the Toppers’ first field-goal attempt out of the locker room, and junior forward Steffphon Pettigrew pushed the lead to 10 points, 50-40, on a pull-up jumper with 18:30 to play.

Western led by as many as 23 points in the second half, emptying the bench nearly to the point where injured junior forward Sergio Kerusch jokingly made an attempt to enter the game with less than a minute left.

For the game, the Toppers shot 48.3 percent and earned 25 points off turnovers, pressuring the guard-oriented Privateers into 25 turnovers.

Junior forward Jeremy Evans scored 10 of Western’s first 12 points, reaching double figures with 14:33 to play in the first half.

But the Privateers matched, going blow for blow with the Toppers until two Crook’s nine first-half points pushed Western ahead 39-30 with just over three minutes to play.

New Orleans closed the lead to seven points before the half but never came closer than that in the final 20 minutes.

Although Evans ended up with only three more points, giving him 13 for the game, he said the overall effort was a big weight off the Toppers’ shoulders.

“It’s a big relief,” Evans said. “We know that we can have our ups and downs and (the seniors) still have our heads up, but just for our young guys, to show them that we’re not going to let up, and it doesn’t matter — we still have games left.”

Saturday’s game marks the Privateers’ final game in Diddle as a member of the Sun Belt, as the school recently announce plans to switch to Division III athletics this July.

Western takes four days off before traveling to Louisiana-Monroe for a 7 p.m. Thursday night tipoff. And after trudging through eight games in 17 days, Slaughter said it’s good to be home.

“It’s always great to sleep in your own bed and have those few days to yourself to get ready for a game,” Slaughter said.