UMKC women complete historic road trip as men struggle at home

The women’s basketball team from UMKC did something that has never been done in the history of the program since joining the Western Athletic Conference on Saturday night.

Since UMKC left the Summit League for the Western Athletic Conference before the 2012-13 basketball season, the Roo women had never won consecutive road conference games during the same weekend. That is no longer the case.

After the UMKC women (7-13 overall, 3-2 WAC) got a game-winning shot from senior guard India Johnson on Thursday, Jan. 18 to get a road win over WAC opponent CSU Bakersfield, the Roos followed that with a 62-59 win at Grand Canyon University on Saturday, Jan. 20.

It’s the first time since joining the WAC that the UMKC women have won back-to-back road games in conference play on the same road trip. Prior to Saturday night’s game, the Roos had lost fourth-quarter leads in three consecutive games. While they overcame that on Thursday and avoided the situation altogether on Saturday, it means that UMKC is a few clutch plays away from being 5-0 to start conference play.

That strength is reflected in some of the numbers. The Roos are currently leading the conference in scoring margin (+2.7) and defensive rebounds per game (36.5). UMKC also ranks second in the WAC in field goal percentage (41.2), steals per game (nine) and turnover margin (+2.25).

As the women were finishing a spectacular road trip, the men (6-15 overall, 1-4 WAC) also looked to get their second consecutive WAC win at home. Unfortunately for the Roos, Grand Canyon’s size was too much for UMKC to handle.

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The Roos were able to frustrate Grand Canyon’s interior attack early, using their energy on defense to contest Lopes shots and get into position to grab rebounds. Sustaining that level of play proved difficult as the first half wore on, especially with UMKC dealing with injuries to post players Brandon Giles and Mo Ahmed.

"“We need to get healthy so we have more bodies to throw out there,” Roos head coach Kareem Richardson said. “You have to give credit to Grand Canyon, they handled our full court press. I thought we did a really good job with our half court pressure for the most part. Those are things that with our lack of size if we aren’t pushing teams out of their comfort zone we don’t have a shot. I was very pleased with the guys’ effort.”"

Although UMKC made a serious run in the beginning of the second half to close what had been a 15-point deficit down to just four points, the result was much the same as the first half with Grand Canyon ultimately pulling away to an 86-59 victory.

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The UMKC men will continue their four-game home stand on Tuesday, Jan. 23 against William Jewell while the women have almost a week off before traveling to New Mexico State on Saturday, Jan. 27. A third consecutive conference win on the road for the Roo women should make the rest of the WAC take notice of what’s going on in Kansas City.

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