Kansas City, Mo. -- The UMKC men's
basketball team dropped a 60-56 decision to IUPUI on Saturday night at Kemper
Arena. The Kangaroos, who were playing
without the services of leading scorer Dane Brumagin, were led in scoring by
sophomore Bakari Lewis, who finished with a career-high 23 points.
UMKC was a two man show to start the game, as Spencer
Johnson and Lewis combined to score the team's first 18 points over the first
14 minutes of the contest. With the
Kangaroos leading 18-14, the Jaguars reeled off seven of nine points to take a
22-21 lead and the one-point advantage stuck as IUPUI went into the locker room
with the 23-22 lead.
Coming out of the break, the Kangaroos went nearly seven
minutes without a field goal, which allowed the Jaguars to build their
advantage to nine (32-23) early in the second half. IUPUI then pushed its lead to a game-high 11
points (40-29) at the 10:20 mark before UMKC began to rally.
The Roos' got back into the game with a 10-0 run over a
three-minute span to pull to within a point at 40-39. Trey McKinney-Jones and Dustin Dibble opened
the spurt with short jumpers to cut the margin to seven.
Latreze Mushatt then followed with a fast break dunk to get
his team to within five and Dibble made two attempts from the charity stripe to
cut the margin to three with 8:20 left.
Mushatt then connected on a short jumper to make the score 40-39 with
7:20 remaining.
The Jaguars immediately countered the UMKC run with nine
unanswered points to push their lead back to double figures (49-39) with 4:33
to play. The Kangaroos had another run
left in the tank, as they scored the next seven points to get to within three
(49-46), but every time they got close, IUPUI came up with an answer.
Lewis kept fighting and kept the door open for a UMKC
comeback, as he made three 3-pointers in the final two minutes. Two of the triples with 36 and four seconds
remaining cut the deficit to three, but IUPUI made just enough of its crunch
time free throw attempts to claim the 60-56 victory.
UMKC finished with a .400 (22-55) field goal percentage and
a .250 (5-20) mark from the distance.
IUPUI, meanwhile, shot .465 (20-43) from the floor and .333 (5-15) from
long range. The Kangaroos won the battle
on the boards in the contest, 36-24, but they also committed 19 turnovers.
Lewis' career-high 23 points came on an 8-of-17 night from
the floor, which included four three pointers.
Mushatt and Johnson also finished in double figures with 12 points
apiece.
The Jaguars had a balanced scoring attack with four players
finishing in double digits. Glenn led
the team with 15 points in the contest.
UMKC (6-18, 2-9) will have a week off before traveling to Cedar City
to square off against Southern Utah next
Saturday night.
