Conference play for the UNK basketball teams begins Thursday night at home against Washburn. The women enter at 6-2 on the season, while the Loper men are searching for momentum after a 1-5 start to their year.
Marty Levinson, UNK men’s basketball coach, noted how his team has kept games close despite the five losses.
“The one positive is just how we haven’t laid down in any of the games,” Levinson said. “Four of them were by nine points or less.”
Following a few tightly contested matches, the men have multiple players out due to injury. That includes Kendrick Gilbert, DJ Jamerson and Tre’Vion Crawford, who have played substantial minutes to start the season.
“Hopefully, we get those three back and give us some size and kind of allow people to play their natural position,” Levinson said. “Then I think that will help us a little bit.”
As the calendar turns to December, Levinson is searching for some more energy from his squad.
“We gotta find the right energy and we gotta find our confidence,” Levinson said. “We gotta be able to execute defensively and offensively against a really well-coached team and a really efficient group.”
As the Lopers embark on conference play, Levinson said that the men are continuing to get better.
“We’ve learned how to compete together, now we gotta learn how to win together,” Levinson said.
As for UNK women’s basketball coach Drew Johnson, he said that they like the spot they are heading into conference play.
“We’re proud of where we are,” Johnson said. “You always like to win them all and that’s never probably going to happen, so just try to continue to grow and get better, especially here in the early part of the season.”
One weakness for the Lopers so far this season has been the inability to consistently make shots, something Johnson has been working on with the team.
“We feel like we took some early possession shots that maybe we could get later in the possession,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t mean they were bad shots, but maybe there was a little bit easier shots to be found. We feel we worked hard on that and time will tell as we get into league play if that’s the case or not.”
On the other hand, the women have more depth on the bench than in recent years, which Johnson sees the potential in as the season rolls on.
“As we get into conference play, it’s gonna allow us to maybe not feel as much of the wear and tear of the season,” Johnson said.
UNK will host Washburn on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and Central Missouri on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Health & Sports Center.
“They both provide challenges that we’ll have to figure out how to combat,” Johnson said. “So again, big tests and then find out kind of where we are and where we are compared to the rest of the league. Then it gives us the rest of the month of December to work on us.”
