KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Missouri S&T gave UMKC a good run Wednesday night, but the Kangaroos were able to hold off the repeated rally efforts by the Miners to take a 90-77 win over them in an exhibition contest at Swinney Recreation Center.

The Kangaroos led for nearly the entire game and were up by as many as 18 points in the second half, but the Miners continually cut into the advantage and had it down to six at one point.

S&T was tied with UMKC at seven in the early going after a basket by B.J. McLaughlin (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central), but the Kangaroos went on a 6-0 spurt to take a lead it would never relinquish.  The lead grew to as many as 14 points by the 6:43 mark before the Miners chopped into it, trimming it to seven on Tyler Anderson (Lee's Summit, Mo./Lee's Summit North)'s free throw with 2:23 to go in the half.

Marcus Walden (Augusta, Ga./Academy of Richmond Co.)'s jumper with 1:21 to go in the half again made it a seven-point contest, but Deshon Taylor's three-pointer and another basket by Taylor before the half ended gave UMKC a 51-39 halftime lead.

UMKC opened the second half by extending the lead to 16 in the first two minutes, but the Miners clawed back into the game and cut the lead into single digits on Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School)'s three-point basket with 15:04 to play.  Just under a minute later, Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights) drained a trey to bring the Miners to within six at 58-52.

However, the Kangaroos answered back with five quick points to get the lead back to 11, only to see S&T get it back to eight on two Curtis Okafor (Kansas City, Mo./Bishop Miege) free throws with 12:46 remaining.

The Miners again were within eight when Zuikov hit a three with 9:20 to go, but the Kangaroos outscored S&T 12-2 over the next four minutes to take their largest lead.

S&T shot 46.4 percent from the field in the opening half, but hot only 11-of-32 in the second half and finished at 40 percent overall in the contest.  The Miners did, however, connect on 10-of-21 from three-point range with Zuikov knocking down four from long range.

McLaughlin led the Miners with 17 points, while Zach Ellis (St. Louis, Mo./Whitfield School) had 15 and Zuikov ended up with 13.

UMKC had four players in double figures – led by Broderick Newbill's 14 points – and finished the game at 53.4 percent from the field.  After a 58.8 percent performance in the opening half, the Miners held the Kangaroos to 45.8 percent after the intermission.

The Miners will return to action Saturday when they host Culver-Stockton in a 6 p.m. game at Billy Key Court.