Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team to visit UMKC

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team will try for its first winning streak of the season when it faces the Kangaroos of Missouri-Kansas City on the road.

Today's 7 p.m. contest at the Swinney Recreation Center in Kansas City, Missouri, is the second game of a four-game road stretch for the Redhawks (3-5).

Southeast is coming off a 48-46 win over Central Arkansas on Saturday.

"This is an extremely busy, busy week. Our players have a ton on their plate," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "We have a game [today] and then two this weekend, and then finals start Monday, so I'm just trying not to overload them too much, but again just keep it simple and just really try to get better in practice, get better in games.

"We'd love to get on a little bit of a roll if at all possible. The one thing I'm trying to do this year is not talk about too much down the road. I'm trying to be smart because I know our team has got a lot going on and I know they're stressed right now with finals coming up, so I'm trying to be pretty quick in, pretty quick out [of practice] and just take it day by day."

UMKC (2-6) carries a three-game losing streak into tonight's contest. One of their two wins was a 69-53 defeat of Eastern Illinois of the Ohio Valley Conference.

Their only common opponent to the Redhawks is Western Illinois. The Leathernecks defeated UMKC by 23 and Southeast by 17.

The Kangaroos' roster is made up of one senior, two juniors, four sophomores and seven freshman, so there isn't much of the same personnel from the team that Southeast defeated 76-74 last season.

"They're just a team where it looks like they're still finding themselves a little bit as well," Margenthaler said about the young squad. "They've been a little bit up and down with games."

The Kangaroos are led in scoring by 5-foot-7 sophomore guard Calli White, who averages 12.1 points per game and has connected on 13 of 40 3-point attempts. She's also a 92.9 percent free-throw shooter (26 of 28).

Kiana Law, a 6-1 freshman forward, averages 9.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.

"She has a nice overall game, really," Margenthaler said about White. "She can shoot the 3 and also can put the ball on the floor and look to drive it, so we'll definitely have to be aware of her. That's definitely their go-to perimeter player. One thing that she does do, though, is she turns the ball over quite often. She has 40 turnovers at this point in the young season. We talked a lot about pressuring her, and when they're setting screens look to maybe trap*...to see if she'll turn it over."