Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team will host UMKC tonight

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team returns home tonight to host Missouri-Kansas City before hitting the road for a six-game stretch.

The Redhawks (2-1) and Kangaroos (0-2) face off at 6 p.m. in the Show Me Center. Southeast won't play at home again until Dec. 13.

The Marsha Frese-led Kangaroos lost 62-55 to North Florida to open the season and lost at Milwaukee 70-48 on Monday.

Sophomore Kiana Law, a 6-foot-1 forward, had 11 points and eight rebounds against North Florida and had 10 points and six rebounds vs. Milwaukee.

"Coach Frese does a great job recruiting and she's recruited some talented young ladies," Patterson said. "I think there's a post player who's had [nearly] a double-double in two of the games, so she's going to be very active on the boards and attacking off the bounce. They're a team that's going to be hungry for their first win, so we've got to be ready to go. They're going to be a little bit more rested than we are, but we're at home, and we're hoping for a great crowd to help us to finish it out strong."

Six-foot redshirt freshman forward Kristen Moore had 14 points against Milwaukee. Six-foot senior guard/forward Taylor Leathers had 11 points and six rebounds against North Florida and 5-4 sophomore guard Daijane Dillard led with 12 points and five rebounds.

The Redhawks defeated UMKC 65-50 last season.

Olivia Hackmann had 13 points and six rebounds and Bri Mitchell had 10 points to pace Southeast, which shot 47.5 percent in that meeting.

Leathers put up 12 points and six rebounds against the Redhawks a year ago.

Returning starters Aries Washington added eight points and five rebounds, and Samantha Waldron had five points. Law had seven rebounds.

Patterson has liked the improvements she's seen from her team in each of its first three games.

"We're continuing to build blocks and get better at some of the things that maybe the game before we weren't," Patterson said. "[Against] SLU our transition defense wasn't good, against Harris-Stowe I felt like our transition defense was good. I think our third quarter [against Alabama A&M] we didn't have a drop off like we had those first two games, so I thought the girls did a good job of building and taking the challenge of us being better."

The Redhawks are coming off a 69-58 road win vs. Alabama A&M. They led by as many as 21 late in the fourth quarter.

Patterson picked up her first career win at home against NAIA Harris-Stowe. Southeast led by as many as 24 in the third quarter of that game before the Hornets pulled within eight points late.

Neither of Southeast's leads in those games have been in any real jeopardy, but continuing to execute while ahead is her focus heading into tonight's contest.

"Obviously want to continue to build, take care of the basketball, understand time and scoring," Patterson said of what she wants to see vs. UMKC. "Understand that when you have a 20-point lead, know you're not going to back off but maybe we don't necessarily attack early. We switch sides of the floor, we reverse the ball and then we get a wide open shot from there or we get a post touch from there. I think that's something that we've got to get better at."