WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The No. 5-ranked West Liberty University men's basketball team got back on trackSaturday afternoon with a 132-95 blowout win against Urbana at the ASRC.

After being held more than 20 points below their season scoring average in rare back-to-back defeats, Coach Jim Crutchfield's Hilltoppers (15-2, 10-2) got back to basics against the Blue Knights (4-14, 1-11) and dominated play from the opening tip.

"That's what West Liberty basketball is supposed to look like," Crutchfield said after seeing WLU's trademark full-court pressure force 30 Urbana turnovers. "I said we had to make some changes after Thursday's loss but 'try harder' was the biggest adjustment.

"These guys (Urbana) took us to overtime when we played over there in the first semester (a narrow 138-133 Hilltopper win) and even though we were in the press the whole game, we couldn't get the ball out of their hands. Today, we forced 30 turnovers and 21 of them were steals. That's a big number and our effort had a lot to do with it."

West Liberty never trailed at any point during Saturday's game and needed less than 5 minutes to build a double-figure lead. That came in the midst of a 12-0 Hilltopper run and Urbana never got the margin into single digits again.

Forcing 19 turnovers in the first 20 minutes, the hosts opened up a 65-40 halftime lead and never looked back. The margin grew as high as 39 points in the second half with the Black and Gold getting contributions from every corner of the roster.

West Liberty had seven players hit double-figures with four of them coming off the bench, including leading scorers Zac Grossenbacher (19 points) and Brady Arnold (18 points).

"Brady and Zac did a lot of good things today," Crutchfield said, "and so did a lot of the other guys who came in with that second rotation. Those guys off the bench gave us a great spark with their energy and intensity again just like they'd done earlier this year and we've got to have that."

Grossenbacher had a pair of monster dunks and two 3-pointers to fuel his 19-point game while the 5-8 Arnold had 4 steals to go along with his 18 points. Zak Kirkbride added 15 points off the bench while Brandon Smith wrapped up the second unit's double-figure scorers with 12 points and 5 assists.

As for the starters, Joe Lococo posted his first double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, Seger Bonifant added 17 points and 7 rebounds and Devin Hoehn chipped in with 16 points. Indiana Faithfull had 6 points and passed out a game-high 7 assists while C.J. Hester finished with 5 points but grabbed a season-high 14 rebounds.

Matt Csuhran led all scorers for Urbana with 26 points. Doug Hilson and Myles Busby added 19 and 17 points, respectively.

The Hilltoppers dominated the backboards at both ends, pulling down 56 rebounds – 21 on the offensive boards. Those extra possessions combined with the 21 steals allowed West Liberty to launch 93 field-goal attempts, making 45 of them for a respectable but not overwhelming 48 percent showing.

"This was a good win but the key for us is sustaining this level of effort every night out," Crutchfield said. "We're not always going to force 30 turnovers but we have to play harder than our opponent every night in order to keep winning basketball games."

The Hilltoppers will be put to the test again on Thursday when they head to Notre Dame (Ohio) for a 7:30 p.m.game.