UWM uses big second half to advance to Horizon title game
The comeback kids did it again. Led by big second halves from both BJ Freeman and Faizon Fields, the UWMilwaukee Panthers earned themselves a spot in the Horizon League Tournament title game for the first time since the 2016-17 season by knocking off defending champion Northern Kentucky, 82-75, Monday night at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis.
Freeman scored 22 of his 27 points and Fields 14 of his 16 over the final 20 minutes as UWM registered its sixth comeback from a double-digit deficit this season in winning its sixth consecutive game, the longest such streak for the program since February of 2014.
“For the most part, we’ve been a resilient group this season,” coach Bart Lundy said. “We’ve gone through a lot of things that would have sunk other teams. I’m proud of the way the guys fought tonight, and the fight all year to get to this point.”
The Panthers (20-14) also reached 20 victories for the second consecutive season under Lundy and will face topseeded Oakland at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“I think it’s great as you build to be able to say this is a mark we can perennially reach,” said Lundy, whose team has now won eight of its last nine overall. As the sixth seed, UWM is the lowest-seeded team to advance to the title game since Cleveland State made it as the eighth seed in 2017-2018.
“That 20-win mark in college basketball is so difficult to get to, and it really does distinguish your program,” Lundy continued. “It’s pretty special for this group that has been here for the entire time – that’s 42 wins in two years.”
It will be the eighth trip to the title game for UWM, which last won the championship in 2014.
“It’s fantastic,” said Lundy. “All year we’ve been talking about playing for the city. There’s so many folks that went to UWM and cheer whether they’re here in Indy or back home. For us to be here and to represent Milwaukee and have a chance here to go to the NCAA Tournament, it means a lot to those that really stuck with us when we weren’t very good.
“We take it pretty seriously.”
The Panthers used red-hot shooting – 54.8% – in the second half to flip the script on the fifth-seeded Norse (18-15), who got a career 33-point game from Trey Robinson but only four points on 2-for-16 shooting from star Marques Warrick.
Milwaukee also hit 21 of 30 free throws (70%) compared to the Norse’s 12-for-15 effort and crushed on the boards, 50-28. Fields had a career-hightying 16 to lead the way.
Freeman, who’d suffered through a miserable 2-for-11, five-point first half, awakened coming out of the locker room for the second half, just as he had in leading the way over UW-Green Bay in the quarterfinals.
He scored the Panthers’ first five points, and then Fields rattled off nine straight with his layup making it a 49-45 game with 15 minutes 2 seconds remaining. It was a quick turnaround for a UWM team that trailed by 15 just prior to the final media timeout in the first half.
Following a Norse layup, an Erik Pratt layup kicked off a 10-0 run that put UWM into the driver’s seat.
A Langston Wilson layup gave the Panthers their first lead of the night at 52-52 with 12:29 left. Then, a couple of minutes, later an emphatic two-handed dunk by Fields in traffic made it 59-53 and forced a timeout by Norse coach Darrin Horn.
It did little good to stem the tide, however, as UWM eschewed the threepointer and instead attacked the Norse zone defense with abandon. The aggressiveness paid off repeatedly in the form of layups or free throws, while on the other end Northern Kentucky converted on just three field-goal attempts in over 10 minutes as the Panthers put the clamps on.
“That was really the game plan going in,” said Lundy of his team’s repeated drives. “We turned it over early and missed a bunch of chip shots and I think we lost confidence. BJ was really struggling. Then they got fatigued and I thought the cracks in their zone opened up a little more and we were able to get through them.”
A driving dunk by Freeman started a personal six-point spurt for the junior wing and continued the theme for the Panthers, who then salted the game away at the free-throw line.
Freeman hit 9 of 24 shots and 8 of 12 free throws in 32 minutes.
“He was definitely trying to force it early,” Lundy said of Freeman, who also committed three turnovers in the first half. UWM turned the ball over nine times in all in the opening 20 minutes, leading to 18 points for Northern Kentucky.
“The second half is where things get easier and that’s what he remembers the next game. Teams come out and they’re not only fresh, but they’re keying on him. So, those first halves have been a little frustrating.
“But when he gets it rolling, he’s really, really good and he’s really hard to stop from going downhill.”
Fields, the 6-foot-10 transfer from Old Dominion, helped shift the momentum of the game with his high energy in the lane. He hit 7 of 12 shots and gave the Panthers a presence on both ends.
“He said tonight that he’s got a team that believes in him and a staff that’s given him confidence,” Lundy said. “Really, since (Darius) Duffy went down he’s shouldered a lot of that and he’s playing with so much confidence. And now we’ve got the other guys coming back and we’ve now got the size that we thought we’d have all along and they’re playing really good basketball.
“I’m proud of Faizon. He’s another guy that’s persevered. He really wasn’t very good early in the year, didn’t have much confidence, and now he’s – I think – one of the more dominant players in the league.”
UWM went 0-2 against Oakland in the regular season, losing 100-95 on the road on Jan. 4 and 91-87 in two overtimes at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Jan. 27.