Seattle University battled Missouri-Kansas City throughout the 2015-16 Western Athletic Conference opener for both teams, but the Kangaroos finished with an 84-69 victory over the Redhawks Thursday night in men’s collegiate basketball action at Municipal Auditorium.
Missouri-Kansas City (8-8, 1-0 WAC) jumped out to an early 13-2 lead thanks in part to three three-pointers, two of them from LaVell Boyd. Aaron Menzies (Manchester, England) came off the bench and scored six straight points to close the UMKC lead to five with 12 minutes to go in the first half.
Martez Harrison hit a three-pointer to extend the Kangaroo lead back to 10 at 20-10 halfway through the first half, but the Redhawks fought back, led by Manroop Clair (Vancouver, B.C.) with six straight Seattle U points to cut the UMKC lead in half. The Kangaroos outscored the Redhawks 11-5 over the final six minutes before halftime to take their biggest lead of the first half at 38-26.
Clair hit a three-pointer five minutes into the second half to cut the UMKC lead to eight at 43-35, but the Kangaroos went on a 16-4 run over the next six minutes to establish their biggest lead of the night at 59-39. Seattle U made one final charge late in regulation, going on an 11-2 scoring run, led by Brendan Westendorf (Auburn, Wash.) with eight points, to close its deficit to seven with 1:12 left in the second half, but the Kangaroos went 8-for-8 from the free throw line in the final minute to put the game away.
Clair led the Redhawks with 20 points, while Westendorf finished with 17 points, four rebounds, three assists, two blocked shots, and a steal. William Powell (Huntsville, Ala.) pulled down a career-high 13 rebounds to go along with six points and four assists, Menzies earned eight points and six rebounds, and Jack Crook (Manchester, England) contributed eight points as well.
“We made too many unforced errors in the first 10 minutes and dug ourselves into a big hole, which you cannot do on the road,” Seattle U head coach Cameron Dollar said. “We need to move on and get ready for Saturday’s game, where we need to do a better job executing our game plan, especially at the start.”
Harrison went 13-for-18 from the free throw line as he led the Kangaroos with 21 points, with Boyd hitting four three-pointers on his way to 20 points, four rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Darius Austin finished with 10 points and seven rebounds, and Shayok Shayok pulled down 11 rebounds as UMKC won the rebounding battle, 40-32.
Each team made the same number of field goals (23), but UMKC was able to continually draw fouls and go to the free throw line, shooting 30-of-43 from the charity stripe, while the Redhawks went 14-of-22 from the free throw line. The Kangaroos scored 20 points off 19 Seattle U turnovers, while the Redhawks collected six points off 11 UMKC turnovers.
Seattle University (6-9, 0-1 WAC) continues the Midwest road trip this weekend, heading to Chicago, Ill., to face the Chicago State Cougars Saturday, Jan. 9, starting at 2 p.m. Central time (12 p.m. Pacific time). Dave Grosby will broadcast the game live from the Jones Convocation Center on 770 AM KTTH, starting with the pregame show shortly before tipoff.