Streaky UWM falls to UWGB.
Season’s 2nd loss against Phoenix
Cold, hot and cold again.
That describes the performance of the UW-Milwaukee men’s basketball team in an 80-56 loss to UW-Green Bay on Saturday afternoon at the UWM Panther Arena.
“That wasn’t the way we wanted that one to work out,” UWM coach LaVall Jordan said.
UWGB defeated UWM for the 10th time in the last 13 games, including twice this season, by surprisingly using a triangle-and-two defense for the first time this year.
“I think we confused them in the beginning,” Phoenix coach Linc Darner said. “When they get in a rhythm, I think they’re really, really good. It’s just something we came up with the other day.”
The Panthers missed 18 of their first 22 shots, sank 10 in a row in one spurt, and then endured a 1-for-18 stretch in the second half on the way to losing their sixth game in a row. They never led and shot 32.1% (18 for 56) to fall to 4-11 in the Horizon League and 8-20 overall.
Cody Wichmann led UWM with 13 points but was 1 for 9 from threepoint range. Brock Stull and Jeremy Johnson each added nine points.
“(UWGB's defense) had a little bit to do with it,” Jordan said. “We had not seen that before, so it was something that threw our rhythm off early. They made an emphasis to take Cody and Brock away. But on the other side of that, I thought we got good opportunities. We just didn’t finish a couple.”
UWGB improved to 10-5 in the Horizon (16-11 overall) to remain in third place and ruined Senior Day for the Panthers, as their final two home games will be held at the Klotsche Center. The Phoenix outscored UWM, 52-18, in the paint and shot 50% (30 for 60).
“I definitely say it has something to do with our experience,” Johnson said. “We’re young, and that’s kind of how our season’s been going lately. Sometimes we’re clicking and sometimes we’re not.”
UWGB scored 20 of the first 25 points and held a 31-10 lead. UWM ended the half on a 14-2 run after making seven straight shots, as the Panthers got within 37-27 at the break after a three-pointer at the buzzer by Jeremiah Bell.
The Panthers also made their first three shots of the second half, including 2 three-pointers from Johnson. His second cut UWGB’s lead to 41-35 with 17 minutes 45 seconds remaining.
“We were coming back from a huge deficit,” Johnson said. “We shortened it to end the first half and I was just hoping there would be some momentum for the team to get things together and get rolling.”
Instead, UWM missed its next eight field goals and waited 10:12 for its next shot to go in. By that time the Phoenix lead was already double digits, where it stayed the rest of the game.
UWGB leads the Horizon in scoring at 80.2 points per game and UWM scores just 67.6. But Jordan said he did not feel extra pressure to keep up on the offensive end.
“Not necessarily,” the coach said. “We’ve won at Detroit when they were scoring high numbers and we know they are potent in transition, and that’s where they really excel. We try to focus more on what we want to do. And we did not execute on the defensive side of it. We’ve had stretches — we had one (Saturday) — long minutes without scoring, but we’ve been able to hold many times.
"You combine the turnovers that we had that led to runouts, with the missed shots that don’t allow us to set our defense, and now the game is being played up and down the court. Obviously, that was a benefit to them.”