Kansas City
Houston Baptist
'Roos Tie School Record; Win 102-87 At Houston Baptist
12/13/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Houston, Texas -- The UMKC men's basketball team tied a school record with 38 free throws in the 102-87 victory at Houston Baptist on Saturday night. Six Kangaroo players finished in double digits in the victory with Jay Couisnard pacing the team with a career-high 23 points.
Couisnard, who was playing in front of around 200 friends and family in his hometown of Houston, connected on 6-of-10 shot attempts and made 10-of-13 free throws en route to his career-best performance. Junior Bakari Lewis finished with 17 points, Spencer Johnson and LaTreze Mushatt scored 14 to go along with eight and seven rebounds, respectively, Trey McKinney-Jones netted 12 and Alex Bazzell added a career-high 10 points.
After playing to a 12-10 lead through the first five minutes, the 'Roos scored six straight courtesy of an old-fashioned three-point play by Mushatt and a traditional long ball from Lewis to take a 20-13 lead. HBU followed with five straight points to cut the deficit to two (20-18), but the 'Roos responded with a 12-0 run to stretch their lead to 32-18 at the 7:48 mark.
The 'Roos proceeded to build their lead to 20 points (48-28) on a Bazzell triple with 2:19 to go in the half before taking a 16-point (52-36) advantage into the break. UMKC shot a blistering .593 (16-27) from the floor, .500 (4-8) from long range and 16-of-21 (.762) from the free throw line in the half and nine of 10 players that saw playing time scored.
The Huskies came out of the break energized as they cut the deficit to 11 points (55-44) over the first four minutes, which forced a UMKC timeout. The 'Roos, however, responded with back-to-back threes by Lewis and Couisnard to push their lead back to 17 (61-44) with 15:47 to play.
Houston Baptist then extended its defense to a full-court press and it was feast or famine for the squad. The Huskies either forced a turnover or gave up an easy bucket as they pulled to within 11 points on two occasions with the final coming at 84-73 with 3:55 to play.
UMKC had an excellent shooting night as it finished with season highs in field goal percentage (.571), three-point field goal percentage (.533) and free throw percentage (.809), which led to the squad scoring a season-best 102 points. HBU, meanwhile, shot .456 (26-57) from the field and .500 (7-14) from long range. The 'Roos also out rebounded the Huskies, 38-26.
Andrew Gonzalez led a group of two HBU players in double figures with a game-high 25 points, while Wendell Preadom finished with 21.
The 102 points are the 15th most in a single game in UMKC history and it is the second time in the Matt Brown era (105 at Oakland in 2007) that the 'Roos have reached the century mark. The 38 free throws, meanwhile, tie the mark that was set in 1992 in the home game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
UMKC (5-4) will now have a week off for finals before returning to action on Saturday night against Central Arkansas. The game will be played at the Swinney Recreation Center beginning at 7:05 p.m.
