Men fall hard against Oakland

Coach blasts team's play on post-game broadcast

By: Dan Stroud

Posted: 1/22/07

The University of Missouri-Kansas City men's basketball team lost 78-60 Saturday night to the Oakland University Grizzlies. But UMKC Head Basketball Coach Rich Zvosec's tirade on the post-game broadcast, which aired on WHB 810, turned out to be just as newsworthy as the main event.

Oakland sophomore Erik Kangas and senior forward Vova Severovas led the Grizzly attack that left the Kangaroos' heads spinning and their coach (Zvosec) fuming.

Kangas scored a career-best 29 points on the wings of another best eight three-point shots. Severovas, last week's Mid-Continent Player of the Week, recorded a double double while scoring 19 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.

"You're down six with the ball, you come out of two straight timeouts and you don't run the play that was called," said Zvosec to host Danny Clinkscale. "That's unacceptable, that's bad … unintelligent basketball."

The coach continued to lambaste the Kangaroos for their play during a game in which the Grizzlies shot 41.4 percent from the three-point arc alone.

"The frustrating thing right now is … it's seniors that are making mistakes over and over again," said Zvosec. "If it's gonna take to play all young guys, I'll take my knocks. We're not advancing right now."

Senior forward Dee Ayuba scored a team-high 27 points, but the coach suggested that he could have scored more if teammates had not stopped feeding him the ball.

"It comes to a point … points in games where you've got to understand who's the hot man," said Zvosec. "It doesn't matter if a guy hasn't made a shot and he's supposed to average double figures. You've just gotta move the ball until you get it to the guy who has the advantage."

But the coach also clarified his underlying feelings for the team despite the inconsistent play this season.

"They're great kids. I'd be happy if any one of them married my daughter," said Zvosec. "But … you've got to learn from past experiences and not make the same mistakes over and over again."

Admitting again he was speaking out of frustration, Zvosec did say he was confident the Kangaroos would get better when they return home to a pair of 7 p.m. starts against Valparaiso on Thursday night and Western Illinois on Saturday night at Kemper Arena.

"We'll have some interesting practices to say the least," said Zvosec.

dstroud@unews.com