Taveion Hollingsworth entered college with a point to prove.
Since the former Paul Laurence Dunbar star left Lexington to play basketball at Western Kentucky in 2017, the Hilltoppers have played 13 games against foes from the six college hoops power conferences.
In those 13 games — included have been matchups against marquee names such as Villanova, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Arkansas and Louisville, among others — Hollingsworth has averaged 15.5 points and 4.2 rebounds.
Against the college hoops "big boys," the 6-foot-2, 165-pound guard has led WKU to an 8-5 record.
"There's definitely some type of chip on my shoulder," Hollingsworth says.
That "chip" goes back to how Hollingsworth was — or wasn't — recruited.
After leading Dunbar to its first hoops state championship, Hollingsworth was the Most Valuable Player of the 2016 Boys' Sweet Sixteen. The following season, he was voted Kentucky's 2017 Mr. Basketball.
Nevertheless, the power conference schools, including hometown Kentucky, were tepid in their wooing of the dynamic guard.
Western Kentucky Coach Rick Stansbury, however, put a full-court press on Hollingsworth.
"The ability to score that basketball and the ability to compete, those are two things that are hard to teach," Stansbury says. "And (Hollingsworth's) got both of those things."
WKU's ardor in its pursuit of Hollingsworth has paid off for handsomely for both parties .
If the coronavirus pandemic can be contained sufficiently to allow Hollingsworth to complete a normal senior season in 2020-21, the guard — standing at 1,494 career points — is on pace to become one of Western's top five all-time scorers.
That's no small achievement at a tradition-rich program that CBSSports.com just ranked as the 21st best in the history of men's college basketball.
"The stats kind of speak for themselves, what he's meant to us," Stansbury says of Hollingsworth.
What Hollingsworth has not yet gotten to do in a Western uniform is play in an NCAA Tournament game.
Both his freshman and sophomore seasons ended one agonizing victory short of the Big Dance. The Hilltoppers lost in the Conference USA Tournament finals by one point to Marshall in 2017-18, then fell to Old Dominion in overtime the following year.
In that pair of conference tourney finals losses, Hollingsworth was a combined 2-for-15 from the floor, 0-for-5 on three-pointers.
"Losing those two games really hurt," Hollingsworth says. "Seeing all my teammates and coaches, everybody around me, sad like that, it upsets me. You feel like you just let the team down."
Because of COVID-19, Western Kentucky had no opportunity for postseason play in 2019-20.
Entering 2020-21, Stansbury challenged Hollingsworth to become a more consistent threat from behind the three-point arc.
After making 37.8% of his three-point shots as a freshman, Hollingsworth has shot 31.8 and 30.8, respectively, the past two seasons.
In high school, Stansbury notes, Hollingsworth could get to the rim anytime he wanted. The guard also has an efficient — and old-school — mid-range game.
That combination meant he entered college not having had to rely on his three-point shooting.
Says Stansbury: "If he can be, oh, a 33-percent shooter (from three-point range), that continues to help set up his drive and makes him a more versatile player and a lot tougher to guard."
Using this past summer to work on one's jump shot was complicated by the pandemic.
At home in Lexington from mid-March into July, Hollingsworth says he did not have access to a gym.
He did catch a break, he reports, because no one ever took the rims down on the basketball goals at a small park near his house.
"Me and my little brother would just go down there and shoot," Hollingsworth says.
For his senior season, Western worked to get Hollingsworth a chance to play as a collegian in his hometown.
UK, however, rebuffed WKU's offer to play the Wildcats in Rupp Arena.
Western (20-10 in 2019-20) returns three double-digit scorers, including leading scorer Hollingsworth (16.6 points per game) from a year ago. The Hilltoppers get back talented 7-footer Charles Bassey (15.3 points and 9.2 rebouds in 10 games) after last year's season-ending leg injury.
So Kentucky's decision not to play WKU should not have shocked anyone.
"It would have definitely been great," Hollingsworth says. "I know my whole family could have (come) to that one — even the family (members) that don't have cars."
Western was scheduled to open its season in the Golden Window Classic in Lincoln, Neb., with games against Nevada (Wednesday) and LSU (Thanksgiving Day).
On Friday night, WKU announced it was no longer participating in the Nebraska event.
So as the WKU schedule officially stands Saturday afternoon, the Hilltoppers will open next Saturday (Nov. 28) vs. Little Rock in Louisville's Wade Houston Classic.
U of L (Dec. 1) is presently the only power conference team the Hilltoppers get a shot at in this regular season.
As a freshman, Hollingsworth went for 30 points in a WKU win against Oklahoma State in Stillwater. The following season, he had 17 points, six rebounds and six assists in a victory at Arkansas.
Last year, the Lexington product had 22 points in a win over Wisconsin and 23 points and nine boards in an overtime victory over Arkansas.
If Hollingsworth's past is prologue, the WKU guard will come up big vs. U of L.
Hollingsworth says he has made his peace with the fact that, instead of playing for a power conference team, he has spent his career helping a C-USA program beat them.
"The way I look at it, this college fit me best," Hollingsworth says of WKU. "The (coaching) staff loves me. My teammates love me. And I love them back. I appreciate them for bringing me here."
