Kansas City
Chicago State
Roos Roll in Final Regular Season Game at Chicago State, 82-53
3/5/2016 5:13:00 PM | Men's Basketball
(Chicago, Ill.) - UMKC finished the regular season with its largest margin of victory on Saturday afternoon at Chicago State, taking an 82-53 victory, powered by hometown product LaVell Boyd's career-high 26 points.
“It was refreshing for our guys with the preparation we put in,” Head Coach Kareem Richardson said. “Especially to start the second half, I thought we really defended well. We shared the ball, and hit a lot of open threes. LaVell was tremendous, and his crew of people at the game were awesome, creating energy over by our bench.”
UMKC (11-18, 4-10 WAC) played well on both ends of the floor in the opening half, shooting 52 percent and holding the Cougars (4-27, 0-14 WAC) to only 29 percent. The charge was led by junior guard Boyd, who scored 16 opening half points in the return to his hometown.
The Roos jumped out to their largest lead of the season, and led the entire half. By the 3:59 mark, UMKC was up by 22 points, although, CSU made a small run to cut it down to 13 with 54 seconds left in the period. UMKC still went into the break with its largest halftime lead of the season at 39-25.
UMKC played most of the first half without Martez Harrison, who picked up two early fouls. Dashawn King also picked up the scoring, hitting for eight points in the period. CSU out-rebounded the Roos, but UMKC forced 11 CSU turnovers and turned them into 15 points.
The second stanza was much of the same, with Boyd hitting back-to-back threes to start the half, both dished by Harrison. From there, UMKC never looked back, going up by as many as 33 points before it was said and done.
UMKC only suited up nine players in the contest, and all of them scored, with four getting in double figures.
The Roos shot 50 percent in the game, but were on fire from three-point land, hitting 13-of-26. It was the most threes in a game in the Richardson era, and most since November 26, 2011 against Longwood, when they hit 16.
The defense was just as good in the second half for the Roos as well, holding CSU to only 29 percent in each period. UMKC also forced CSU into 16 turnovers and scored 27 points off those miscues. The 53 points allowed were the fewest for UMKC all season
Boyd's 26 led the way, but Kyle Steward tallied 11 and King finished with 10. Harrison scored 11 points, but more importantly had seven assists with only one turnover in the game. The victory was also the first for the Roos on the road since Nov. 21 at Drake.
UMKC will be the No. 5 seed and face No. 4 seeded Utah Valley on Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific local time/ 4 p.m. CT in the WAC Tournament.
