Boca Raton, Fla. -- The UMKC men's basketball team opened its five-game swing in the state of
Florida with a 77-59 loss to Florida Atlantic
on Saturday night at the FAU Arena in
Boca
Raton, Fla. The Kangaroos got a 22-point performance by
sophomore
Reggie Hamilton, but they couldn't overcome a 13-point half time
deficit in the defeat.
The Owls jumped out to an early 8-2 lead over the first
six-and-a-half minutes before a Trey McKinney-Jones lay-up pulled UMKC to
within four (8-4) with 12:10 left in the half.
FAU then used a 13-4 run over the next six minutes to stretch its margin
to 13 at 21-8 at the 5:56 mark.
The Kangaroos answered with six straight points via three
pointers from Latreze Mushatt and Dane Brumagin to cut the deficit to seven
points (21-14), but the Owls quickly answered with a 13-2 run to stretch the margin
to 16 (32-16) with 1:19 remaining in the half.
UMKC then scored the final three points of the first half to go into the
locker room down, 32-19.
Coming out of the break, Hamilton knocked down a pair of three
pointers to get UMKC to within single digits at 34-25 with 18:58 left. Florida Atlantic, however, delivered a
knock-out blow over the next five minutes, as the squad used a 13-2 run to
stretch the margin to 20 at 47-27 with 14 minutes to play.
The Kangaroos kept battling as they cut their deficit to 14
points on a pair of occasions with the final coming with 2:55 remaining. The Owls, however, stretched their lead to 20
a second time at 75-55 before taking the contest by the score of 77-59.
UMKC shot .339 (21-62) from the floor and .400 (8-20) from
three-point range, while FAU shot .421 (24-57) from the field and .333 (7-21)
from long range. The Owls dominated the
action on the glass, as they out rebounded UMKC, 51-31. Twenty of those boards came on the offensive
glass.
Hamilton's
22-point performance was his second 20-point game this season and the fifth
such game of his career. The sophomore
connected on 8-of-18 shot attempts, which included a 4-of-7 night from long
range. Mushatt was the only other player
in double digits, as he finished with 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting.
The Owls' Shavar Richardson led a group of four FAU players in
double figures, as he finished with 18 points.
Chris Watson, meanwhile, grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds.
UMKC (1-3) will return to action on Monday afternoon at 4
p.m. (CST) against Bradley. The game is
the first of three games in three days for the Kangaroos at the O'Reilly Auto
Parts CBE Classic.
