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Western Kentucky athletic director Todd Stewart is proud of the school's ongoing success in competition and classwork.

The Hilltoppers earned Conference USA titles in women's basketball and volleyball this past year Adidas Ryan Getzlaf Jersey , bringing the total to 24 since entering the league in 2014. Stewart noted that his school has twice the hardware of the next closest conference member, Middle Tennessee, over the same time period.

WKU also posted a graduation rate of 85 percent with 11 of 14 programs registering at least 970 in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate. Four posted perfect 1,000 scores, making Stewart proud on multiple levels as he enters his seventh year as AD.

"Big-picture wise, I feel really good about where we are because the winning continued," Stewart told the Associated Press. "We've doubled everybody up and at the same time our graduation success rate is 85 percent, the highest it's been in WKU athletics.

"That speaks to our coaches and athletes and doing it the right way, and doing it well."

Volleyball showed that by winning its fourth consecutive regular season and tournament titles and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Alyssa Cavanaugh was recently named C-USA Female Athlete of the Year, the third Hilltopper to earn the prestigious honor over the past four years.

Women's basketball meanwhile won its second consecutive tournament title and third in four years under former coach Michelle Clark-Heard. The former Hilltopper player left soon after the NCAA Tournament for the head coaching job at Cincinnati, where she had been an assistant.

Stewart wasn't shocked Clark-Heard earned another opportunity after she went 154-48 over six seasons with four NCAA appearances in Bowling Green. The AD promoted associate coach Greg Collins to the lead job, believing his familiarity with the program can maintain the winning.

"She just did a phenomenal job," Stewart said of Clark-Heard. "We knew we had a succession plan in place Authentic Derick Brassard Jersey , so when she decided to go to Cincinnati it was easy to name Greg the head coach, and our players are excited about that."

Men's basketball has generated similar anticipation after reaching the NIT semifinal under second-year coach Rick Stansbury. Early-season upsets of No. 18 Purdue and SMU spurred WKU (27-11) to achieve its highest win total in a decade before falling to Utah in New York City.

Stansbury's next step is earning the 'Toppers' first NCAA appearance since 2013 with a C-USA title and automatic bid. Encouraged by an incoming class featuring 6-foot-11 Charles Bassey and a returning cast led by guard Taveion Hollingsworth 鈥?a former AP Kentucky Player of the Year 鈥?the coach believes his team is capable of bigger things.

"I don't want it to be 'maybe'. We can," Stansbury said of his team's outlook. "Last year was a brand new team, a fun team to watch. We had some great success early. This is a fun team because we have good people and that's why it mixed so well."

After back-to-back C-USA titles and bowl wins under Jeff Brohm, the football team finished 6-7 in Mike Sanford's head coaching debut and played in its fourth consecutive bowl. Linebacker Joel Iyiegbuniwe (fourth round, Chicago Bears) and quarterback Mike White (fifth round, Dallas Cowboys) were selected in the NFL Draft, giving the program seven selections since 2016.

The Hilltoppers' challenge now is replacing those two key players with a schedule that includes in-state rival Louisville and Big Ten member Wisconsin along with a tough C-USA docket.

"The problems that come with winning are better than those that come with losing," said Stewart, who has seen Bobby Petrino (Louisville) and Brohm (Purdue) parlay successful WKU tenures into Power 5 coaching jobs. He believes WKU can compete this year now that Sanford has put talent and personnel in place.

"People became used to precedent and it's hard to win three (titles) in a row," he added. "Last year was kind of a reset, mainly because the 2017 roster was so different from 2016."

Stewart's positive outlook for his program is being reflected in facility upgrades to meet increased ticket demand, especially in basketball. The football stadium and basketball arena will add video boards and improve sound systems Youth Mason Rudolph Jersey , and the AD is eager to see how C-USA's new TV deal with CBS Sports Network benefits exposure.

The AD acknowledges that WKU remains challenged financially, but takes satisfaction in how his program has thrived despite lagging behind other conference schools. Stewart believes that success will pay off and remains committed to making it happen.

"Hopefully the situation gets better for us, because if it does I think we can do bigger and better things," he said. "What we sell here is that we have a winning culture. There are a lot of positives, and that's what we try to focus on."


Yannick Ngakoue says whatever Buffalo Bills guard Richie Incognito was trying to accomplish didn’t work.

The Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end stood by his tweet accusing Incognito of using “weak racist slurs” during their playoff game, but the second-year pro declined Monday to provide more details about what was said.

”I’ve been playing this game for what, 12, 13 years now,” Ngakoue said. ”I’ve never encountered nothing like that.”

Ngakoue called out Incognito on Twitter hours after Jacksonville’s 10-3 victory , referring to the offensive lineman by his No. 64 jersey.

”Great win today! And 64, you goin have to come harder than some weak racist slurs. I’m proud of my African heritage, as are 70% of the other Black players in this league. (hash)Iaintjonathanmartin!”

Ngakoue declined Monday to disclose what Incognito said.

”I just felt like people needed to know what happened,” he said. ”He knows what he said. I don’t got to repeat it.”

An NFL investigation found that Incognito and two Miami Dolphins teammates engaged in persistent harassment directed at fellow offensive lineman Jonathan Martin Youth Kyle Lauletta Jersey , who left the team in the middle of the 2013 season. Incognito was suspended for the final eight games and sat out the 2014 season before joining the Bills.

Fellow Jaguars defensive end Calais Campbell said several Buffalo players were talking trash during the game, especially in the second half. But the 10th-year pro said he never heard anything inappropriate.

”I think they were really trying to get us to lose our cool and try to get penalties,” Campbell said. ”There were a lot of guys talking as if it was coached to get us to lose our cool, so we can get a 15-yard penalty. I think that’s something we’re going to have to deal with because we’ve shown we can be a little too aggressive at times.

”(That’s) going too far, though. I understand trying to give yourself an advantage, and you see somebody trying to egg them on to try to get a penalty, I understand that. But there are boundaries. You don’t go to racial slurs; that’s not OK.”

Incognito was not present in the locker room during Buffalo’s hour-long media availability Monday. He also did not respond to a text message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Bills rookie left tackle Dion Dawkins said he didn’t hear Incognito say anything that crossed the line.

”I was next to Richie the entire game and Richie did not say one thing,” Dawkins said. ”And if he did, (you) best believe I would’ve been one of the first people to basically check him on it because there’s races. There’s a lot of stuff that’s going on in this country, and there’s boundaries. But if he did overstep, I would have said something. As far as I know, he did his thing.”

Ngakoue saw it differently, saying Incognito’s words came after a pass play.

”I’ve been playing this game since I was a little kid Trent Brown Jersey Patriots ,” Ngakoue said. ”You hear all type of stuff. Stuff’s not going to bother you, but somebody says something about your ethnicity, that’s really kind of taking it a little bit too far. I’m all with trash talk. It’s part of the game, but you can’t say certain things.”

Although Ngakoue said he didn’t tell officials or mention it during postgame interviews, he felt compelled to take his complaint to social media.

”Look at the world we live in,” he said. I’m not shocked. It is what it is. … It just goes to show you we’ve still got a lot of growing to do as a league and just as people, period. That’s why we have this platform to use to try and help bring change.”

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AP Sports Writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.

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