📍 Bowling Green, Kentucky
🏀 Home of Western Kentucky Hilltoppers basketball

The athletic teams of Western Kentucky University are affectionately known as the “Hilltoppers”, due to the campus’ location near the apex of a 232-foot hill in downtown Bowling Green. The Toppers’ logo, however, is almost confusingly unrelated. It features an iconic red towel, an homage to the one famously used by legendary basketball coach Edgar Allen Diddle, for whom WKU’s impressive basketball arena is named.

In 1922, Diddle became the head coach of what was then called the Western Kentucky State Normal School, remaining at the helm for 42 incredibly successful years. The ‘Toppers legend was perhaps most known for his trusty red towel, which he wielded and waved during every game he coached. The towel became so synonymous with Western Kentucky that the school made it the official logo of their athletic teams in 1971.

Diddle was also the first person in college basketball history to coach more than 1,000 games at a single school. He coached the Western football, baseball and women’s basketball teams at times as well. In 1963, during the last season of Coach Diddle’s tenure, the grand new 8,500-seat home of WKU basketball opened its doors. The venue was named E.A. Diddle Arena in his honor and although Diddle retired the following year, he continued to attend Hilltoppers home games and lead fans in chants and cheers until his death in 1970.

Thanks in part to Coach Diddle’s tremendous success in the saddle, the Hilltoppers have cemented themselves as one of the most successful mid-major teams. Although the accomplishment later had to be vacated, WKU was a participant in the 1971 Final Four, losing in double overtime to Villanova. The Toppers have been in more than 40 postseason tourneys overall, accepting only invites issued to them by the NCAA and NIT tournaments. The team’s most successful season was in 1942, when they advanced to the NIT Championship Game, falling 47-45 to West Virginia in what was then considered the premier postseason tournament in college basketball.

Western Kentucky’s long and storied history is elaborated upon in great detail all throughout Diddle Arena, with the “Halls of History” wrapping around the entire main concourse. There’s so much to see and read that, if one wanted to truly soak up all of the Hilltopper lore on display, they might have to forfeit catching that day’s game.

The most eye-catching feature of the venue is the immense convex roof, which makes for great acoustics on gameday. The seating bowl also surrounds every inch of the court in a complete circle, creating a daunting atmosphere on The Hill for marquee matchups. Although there’s no center-hung scoreboard as is typical in other arenas of its size, Diddle Arena features two fairly large videoboards in opposing corners of the venue, ensuring fans can always stay on top of the action and allowing for unobstructed views of that beautiful ceiling.

After close to 40 years of non-stop use, the venue was overhauled in 2002, bringing the facility up to its current state and reducing capacity to just under 7,400. It’s still not a modern arena in any sense of the word, but this is a good thing; just like Duke’s Cameron Indoor or Penn’s Palestra, Diddle Arena is a throwback to days gone by and offers that classic college basketball experience. Unlike a lot of other 60-year-old venues, Diddle is perfect just the way it is and has aged with grace, becoming a quaint but spacious place to watch college hoops.