Men’s basketball team headed to Municipal Auditorium; women split games with Swinney Rec Center

UMKC Chancellor Mauli Agrawal announced to Roo News today that the Kansas City men’s basketball team will be playing at the Municipal Auditorium for the entire 2026-27 season.

Agrawal also confirmed that the women’s team will only play doubleheaders at the court, remaining at the Swinney Rec Center for single games.

“We are going to go back and play at Municipal Auditorium downtown. Swinney is great; it’s a very close and personal experience of being at the games. But with Turgeon coming and the kind of players he will recruit, we cannot handle that crowd,” said Agrawal.

Both teams had subpar records last season, with the men’s team having an overall record of 4-27 and the women’s at 7-23.

“You’ve got to balance this. Even for the men, Municipal is about 10,000 seats. If you have too few spectators, then it doesn’t look right. It looks like ‘who are you guys?’” Agrawal said. “We can get 1,500 people at Swinney, and it looks like, ‘oh, it’s full.’”

The basketball program has been revamped over the last few months, bringing in new head coaches for both the men’s and women’s teams.

“This is all kind of an experiment right now, but we’re excited. We’ll add to the student experience again.”