Say bonjour, hallo, xaipete and howdy to this season’s KC Roos men’s basketball team

Allen Mukeba Jr. sought a basketball destination in the United States but didn’t find many takers. Eventually, he accepted an offer to attend Colby Community College in Colby, Kansas.

Yes! An American destination for the Belgian baller of Congolese descent.

“I thought it was going to be a big school like in the movies,” Mukeba said. “When you’re from Europe and just watch the movies and you see everything about America is big ...”

Then Mukeba actually got to Colby, 375 miles west of Kansas City on Interstate 70 with a population of 5,600.

“Middle of nowhere, really hot, snows a lot in winter, everything closes at 8, and the food is not the same at all,” Mukeba said.

But the basketball in the Jayhawk Conference is excellent, and Mukeba played well enough to earn a spot with the Kansas City Roos this season. He’s one of nine international players on the team’s 18-person roster under first-year head coach Marvin Menzies.

Talk about global reach. Belgium, Germany, Senegal, Greece and the Democratic Republic of Congo are represented on this year’s KC Roos squad. Practices can sound like a the United Nations gathering ... only, without an interpreter..

“A lot of them know two or three different languages,” said Shemarri Allen, a senior from Arden, N.C. “In practice, hearing them speak French ... we’re slowly learning about each other.”

Growing familiar is a leading objective for a UMKC team that returns just one starter — Anderson Kopp, who averaged 8.3 points last season — and three other letter winners.

The idea with the big roster is to identify 13 regulars and redshirt five, Menzies said. Eleven of his newcomers, and several of the global players, are freshmen.

“Typically, I wouldn’t have this many young guys in a particular class,” Menzies said. “But we’re laying a foundation ... with high talent guys that embrace the work.”

Throughout a career that includes head coaching stops at UNLV and New Mexico State and assistant gigs at Louisville, USC and San Diego State, Menzies developed international connections.

That paid for him in a big way during his years at New Mexico State, where he recruited Pascal Siakam, a Cameroon native who became a first-round NBA Draft pick and started for Toronto Raptors 2019 championship team.

International recruiting was a way for Menzies to discover talent that could be developed, and not the close-to-finished products who had grown up playing at U.S. prep schools and AAU teams.

“If I’m sitting next to Bill Self, and (you’ve) got Roy Williams over here and Coach (Rick) Pitino down there, we all want the same kid,” Menzies said. “I wasn’t going to beat them.

“But internationally, with the growth of basketball, I have the opportunity to get high-level talent. Might take a little longer to develop and get adjusted to U.S. style of basketball. But once you get them there, the ingredients that you can bring to your squad I think put you in a situation where you can have high-major players.”

Length is a common thread through most of the Roos’ international newcomers. Freshman Sidy Diallo from Senegal is 7-foot-2. Freshman twin brothers Precious and Promise Idiaru from Germany are 6-9. Mukeba is 6-7 and his brother Logan is 6-5.

“We just woke up one day and we became one of the tallest teams in the NCAA,” Allen said.

Now, the Roos will look to pair their overhauled roster and new coaching staff and build on a good 2021-22 season. UMKC finished 19-12 overall, third in The Summit, before coach Billy Donlon left to become an assistant at Clemson.

The Roos were picked to finish sixth in this year’s league race, and the program, in its 37th season as Division I, will be trying reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time. An appearance in the final game of the conference tournament also would be a first.

Menzies is still working out how the team should play, but he liked what he saw from his team in its preseason scrimmage at Iowa last weekend. Early-season challenges continue, with games at LSU, Illinois, Kansas State and Oklahoma.

Building an efficient team with strong rebounders who made opposing offenses uncomfortable is the goal, as it is for many teams. But the Roos will look to do it with an international flavor.

KC ROOS’ 2022-23 MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE:

Home games played at the Swinney Center

November — 2 vs. Langston (exhibition); 7 vs. Lincoln; 9 at LSU; 11 at Illinois; 14 vs. Calvary Bible; 17 at Kansas State; 21 vs. Toledo (Estero, Fla.); 22-23 Gulf Coast Showcase (Estero, Fla.); 26 vs Southern Illinois-Edwardsville; 29 vs. Idaho State.

December — 3 vs. Lindenwood; 6 at Oklahoma; 10 at Green Bay; 19 vs. South Dakota; 21 vs. South Dakota State; 29 at Denver; 31 at Omaha.

January — 7 at Oral Roberts: 12 vs. St. Thomas; 14 vs. Western Illinois; 19 at North Dakota; 21 at North Dakota State; 26 vs. Omaha; 28 vs. Denver.

February — 4 vs. Oral Roberts; 9 at Western Illinois; 11 at St. Thomas; 16 vs. North Dakota State; 18 vs. North Dakota; 23 at South Dakota State; 25 at South Dakota.

March — 3-7 Summit Championships at Sioux Falls, S.D.