Some familiar shortcomings vex Panthers

The same issues that have plagued UW-Milwaukee in recent weeks reared their heads again at Robert Morris on Saturday night.

Turnovers. Defensive rebounding. Opponent three-point shooting.

Struggles in these areas spelled doom for the Panthers in a 80-60 loss to the Colonials at UPMC Events Center.

The loss, Milwaukee's second in a row and third in its last five games, all but eradicated any hopes it had of winning the Horizon League regular season title. The Panthers fell two games back of first-place Youngstown State, which faces two of the bottom three teams in the standings for its final two contests of the regular season.

It again wasn't the Panthers' (18-10, 12-6) halfcourt defense that did them in. They held the Colonials (14-15, 9-9) to 45.8% shooting from the field and generally held their own when able to set their defense.

But Milwaukee committed 16 turnovers and allowed 16 offensive rebounds on 33 total missed shots. When the Panthers have struggled, those have more often than not been the areas that have hurt them.

Another concern: for the fifth straight game, Milwaukee's opponent made double-digit three-pointers and were able to attempt them at a high volume.

"We got outrebounded by 20," Panthers head coach Bart Lundy said. "We got to compete on the glass and can't give up that many threes. Just got to do a better job possessing the ball, getting good possessions offensively. We can't play from behind. There's a lot of things we need to correct."

The Colonials shot 12 for 27 on threes, barely outshooting the Panthers in percentage (44.4 to 43.8%) but getting more volume as the visitors made only seven triples. Josh Corbin hit a trio of threes and scored 16 points, one of five Robert Morris players to score in double figures. Jackson Last had 16 points in 20 minutes and Michael Green made four threes and scored 14 points.

Elijah Jamison scored 13 points to lead the Panthers, who once again were missing the athleticism of Markeith Browning on both ends of the floor.

The Panthers trailed wire-to-wire in a blowout loss to Youngstown State on Thursday but got off to a better start Saturday. They held their largest margin of the game at 21-16 midway through the first half before the Colonials proceeded to fire off a 16-0 run to take a 32-21 lead.

Milwaukee was only within single digits for three minutes the rest of the way.

MARK HOFFMAN / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL UW-Milwaukee guard BJ Freeman splits Robert Morris defenders Jackson Last and Kahliel Spear (2) during the second half Thursday at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in Milwaukee.