Could Mark Turgeon be the one to get KC Roos hoops hopping? He has a local angle

Kansas City Roos men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon’s office at UMKC is a bare one-window room with a folding table for a desk, surrounded by four chairs.

It mirrors the look of an office for a political campaign, with half-unpacked boxes on the floor and papers spread across tables. Members of Turgeon’s staff come and go, making phone calls and discussing practice plans.

Tucked into the back of the office occupied by the campus’ newest coaching regime is a rendering. The image portrays a reimagined Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City, the Roos’ new home for the 2026-27 season.

The team played the last seven seasons on campus at the 7,000-seat Swinney Center.

That image is what the Topeka-born Turgeon is building toward. He was hired to succeed Marvin Menzies, who retired after last season. (Turgeon himself, a well-traveled 61-year-old, has spent the past four years in retirement.)

A little over 100 days since taking the job, Turgeon sees his mission as establishing a new era for Roo’s basketball — on and off the court.

On the court, he’s overhauled the roster with 13 new players, nine of them freshmen — the largest recruiting class of Turgeon 24-year coaching career and the highest-rated class in program history, per 24/7.

He focused on recruiting local talent, receiving commitments from three of the top four high school players in Kansas within a week of his hire.

But off the court is just as important to him, and like a politician running for office, he has hit the campaign trail. He has appeared in gyms around the metro to talk to local prospects and donors and spread the message that his program won’t be the UMKC of old.

“I want us to be the talk of the town,” Turgeon said. “People around the water cooler, they’re not just talking about KU basketball or Missouri basketball; they’re talking about UMKC basketball.”

Turgeon first reclamation project as a head coach came at nearby Wichita State. In 2006, he led the Shockers to their first NCAA Tournament in 16 years and a trip to the Sweet 16.

Twenty years later, Turgeon said he has the same mission at UMKC: to take the program where it’s never been before — the NCAA Tournament.

“I have a great vision for this program,” Turgeon said. “Things I wouldn’t even say publicly because people would think that I’ve lost my mind. But I have a great vision for what we are trying to do.”

The local ties that bind

Of course, Turgeon’s goal of taking the Roos to the NCAA tourney seems miles away right now.

They are coming off the worst season in school history — 4-27 overall, 1-15 in Summit League play. They ended the 2025-26 season on a 14-game losing streak.

With nowhere to take the program but up, Turgeon and his son Will, who joined his father as an assistant coach, hit the recruiting trail.

Turgeon wanted to build his first UMKC team around the best high school talent in Kansas City. And his efforts paid off almost immediately.

The day after his introduction, he landed Olathe North High School three-star guard Cameron Love, the third-ranked player in Kansas, per 24/7 Sports. He also signed Piper High three-star guard DJ Jackson, the fourth-ranked player in Kansas, and Oak Park guard Josh Kori, the 11th-ranked player in Missouri.

“They’re all different in different ways,” said Roos assistant coach Brandon Burgette. “Josh (Kori) is a big-time player… Cam (Love) is coming off a state championship this year … and has done some great things on the floor and was defensive player of the year in Kansas. And DJ (Jackson) did a great job at Piper in leading them.”

The three KC natives grew up playing AAU hoops together on the Under Armour Circuit for KC Run GMC. A week after Love, Jackson and Kori committed, their Run GMC teammate, three-star forward Will Goode, joined them.

Goode is the second-ranked player in Kansas, per 24/7. He attended St. Thomas Aquinas before spending a prep year at New Hampton School in New Hampshire.

“We wanted to keep kids home,” Turgeon told The Star. “We want to get some Kansas City kids, and we did that.”

The infusion of Kansas City talent is a stark contrast to UMKC rosters of the recent past. Turgeon’s first roster here will feature four players from KC or the surrounding area. Just four players from the metro have suited up for the Roos since 2020.

The local splashes marked the beginning of what became the highest-rated recruiting class in UMKC history, according to 247Sports. Turgeon aims to set a new standard for the program.

“If someone calls me and says, ‘He’ll be a good player for your level,’ I’m saying that he’s probably not good enough for me,” Turgeon said. “If a guy says, ‘Well, Coach, you haven’t been very good in the past,’ I’m like, ‘OK, then you need to go somewhere else.’”

‘Don’t put limits on our program’

Three weeks into summer workouts, more than two months ahead of the start of the 2026-27 season, Turgeon believes his team is right on schedule.

With the majority of his players stepping onto a college campus for the first time, Turgeon knows the identity of this year’s team is still taking shape. But there is a message he is sharing with his players, staff and anyone else who will listen.

“Don’t put a limit,” he’ll say, “on our program.”

It started at his introductory news conference, when he asked, “Why come out of retirement to be mediocre?” Turgeon expects the Roos to win games this coming season; he said he wouldn’t have come back to college basketball for anything less.

“I didn’t come out of retirement to lose,” he said. “I don’t want to go 5-25 next year, or 10-20. We want to have a winning record and we want to win.”

It’s been four seasons since Turgeon departed the Maryland Terrapins after 11 years as head coach. College basketball has changed drastically since then.

But the need for NIL dollars and emergence of the transfer portal haven’t deterred a man who has made a career of fixing college hoops programs. His playbook in Kansas City is rooted in the same principles he used at Wichita State, Texas A&M and Maryland.

All became successful under Turgeon’s watch. And of today’s college sports landscape, he said, “It’s a little bit easier” today.

“You can get there a little bit faster because of the portal and because of NIL,” he said. “But I’m going to need a lot of people helping me to do that.

“I’m a lot more confident today than I was when I took over Jacksonville State or Wichita State. I know that I know what I’m doing.”

That rendering in his spartan office, of 7,000 screaming Roos fans inside Municipal Auditorium, is a reminder of the goal he is chasing. He wants the Power & Light District to be filled with UMKC fans after wins — families and alumni turning out to support a team based just around the corner.

In a city dominated by three high-major programs, Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State, Turgeon is eager to put the Roos on the map, one Kansas City recruit at a time.

“I need to get the city on board,” he said. “You can’t all go to a KU game, so come watch us play. You can’t all go to the Missouri games, come watch us play. You can’t all go to K-State games, come watch us play.”