MACOMB, Ill. - The Fighting Leathernecks found themselves down 18 points at halftime, but used an unbelievable second-half effort to propel them past Kansas City Thursday evening (Feb. 28) inside Western Hall.
"First and foremost I would like to thank the Lord for blessing our efforts," said head coach Jim Molinari. "He is the one that has built this program. Secondly, I would say the key to the game was that we held them to 11 points in the second half. And thirdly, we try to recruit character, no one has perfect character, obviously, but we try to recruit it. My philosophy is if you recruit character you can challenge it. If you challenge someone with no character, they will quit on you. If you challenge people with character, they will come back and fight. I really challenged our team at halftime and they came back hard to fight."
The victory clinches the second-seed for Western Illinois in The Summit League tournament, and allows for the Leathernecks to battle for a share on the regular season championship with a win in their season finale Saturday.
Western improves to 20-7 overall on the season, tying the program's NCAA Division I program win mark, and 12-3 in conference play. The UMKC Kangaroos fall to 7-23 overall and 4-11 in league action after the loss.
The last time the Leathernecks earned 20 wins in a season was the 1994-95 season.
Junior center Michael Ochereobia started his first game with Terell Parks out with an injury, and led the team with 14 points on 5-of-5 shooting from the floor, and 4-of-6 from the free throw line.
Two Leathernecks played all 40 minutes in Ceola Clark III and Adam Link. Clark tallied 13 points, dished out a game-high six assists, had four steals and a rebound. Link shot 4-of-5 from the field and recorded eight points to go along with his six rebounds, one assist and one turnover.
Jack Houpt had nine points, all courtesy of shots from beyond the arc, six rebounds, a blocks and a steal in the win. Jordan Foster (5) and Remy Roberts-Burnett (4) were the other two WIU players to score.
Western shot 47.5% in the game, 50% in the second half, while UMKC connected on 50% of its shots in the contest. The Leathernecks committed 10 turnovers, only one in the second half, to the 'Roos 17 total turnovers.
It was all UMKC in the first half as the 'Roos jumped out to a 7-0 lead, and eventually found themselves ahead 18 points at the break, 39-21. UMKC shot 71.4% in the first (15-of-21) and 62.5% (5-of-8) from long range in the first.
The Leathernecks began their second half surge with a 13-2 run that was highlighted by back-to-back treys from Houpt and a triple from Foster that brought Western to within seven, 41-34, with 17 minutes left in the game.
UMKC built its lead back up to 10 midway through the second, but Western absorbed the 'Roos momentum, recaptured it, and scored 12 of the next 14 points to knot things up at 48 apiece with just over four minutes to play. An Ochereobia fast-break layup moments later gave WIU its first lead of the game, a lead it never gave up, on its way to its 20th win of the season.
Western will honor its seniors Saturday, and battle for a share of The Summit League's regular season championship at home versus South Dakota.
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