Panthers Hope To Bounce Back At Wright State
Feb. 1, 2008
#22: Milwaukee (12-9, 7-4) @ Wright St. (13-6, 6-4)
Tipoff The Panthers dropped a disappointing 72-61 decision at Detroit Thursday night, just their second loss in their last 11 outings. Turnovers were the biggest issue for UWM, with its 18 turnovers the most by the Panthers since last month. Plus, Milwaukee shot just 39.6 percent from the field. The Raiders won for the fourth-straight time in claiming a 71-67 victory over Green Bay Thursday night in Dayton. Todd Brown and Vaughn Duggins lead a balanced Wright State attack, with the Raiders looking to take no worse than outright possession of third place with a victory Saturday. After tonight's contest, UWM will play five of its final six league games at home. The stretch will open after the Panthers get more than a week off. Saturday's game starts at 6 p.m. CST and can be seen live in Milwaukee on Time Warner Sports as well as nationally on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360. • Game #22 The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team wraps up its weekend road trip with a Saturday night contest at Wright State. • Scouting The Raiders Wright State has found its stride after a slow start in league play. The Raiders have won four in a row after starting 2-4 in the league and would be no worse than third in the standings with a win Saturday. Todd Brown leads the way at 14.7 points per game with Vaughn Duggins right behind him at 14.6 points per contest. Wright State beat Green Bay, 71-67, Thursday night. • History Lesson UWM holds a 20-15 all-time lead over Wright State thanks to having won 12 of the last 14 meetings between the two schools. In fact, when the Raiders claimed a 59-54 win in Dayton in 2005-06, it snapped a 10-game winning streak in the series for the Panthers. Wright State also beat UWM in Dayton last season, though, and thus has a modest two-game winning streak over the Panthers in the Nutter Center.
• First Time With The Raiders Ricky Franklin scored a collegiate-best 24 points and UWM hit a season-best 12 three-pointers in capturing a 75-64 win over Wright State Jan. 3. Paige Paulsen added 15 points and six rebounds while Deion James pitched-in with 12 points off the bench for Milwaukee. Todd Brown scored 21 points and Vaughn Duggins added 19 for Wright State. The Panthers wound up shooting only 43.1 percent overall for the game. But, Milwaukee scored 74 or more points for a third-straight outing and converted 19-of-25 from the foul line in the contest. • Shooting For A Cure This weekend is the annual Coaches vs. Cancer recognition by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, meaning the UWM coaching staff will be wearing sneakers on the sidelines this weekend. In addition to the events of this weekend, though, a group of basketball coaches in Wisconsin are launching their own event - Shooting for a Cure, the inaugural Coaches vs. Cancer Gala in Wisconsin. The event, which will be co-hosted by Rob Jeter and his wife, Deanna, is scheduled for Sat., May 31, at the Marriott Madison West. It help raise funds for the American Cancer Society in Wisconsin and share the importance of saving lives from cancer. The Shooting for a Cure committee is seeking corporate sponsors and auction items to help achieve their goal of raising $100,000 in their first year. Proceeds from the Gala will support all the American Cancer Society programs and services in the state of Wisconsin. The other hosts for the evening are Bo and Kelly Ryan of the University of Wisconsin, Luke and Meredith Reigel of UW-Parkside, Paul and Michelle Combs of UW-Platteville and Todd and Jennie Adrian of Edgewood College. • Success Away From Home After struggling away from home a year ago, the Panthers have found their stride away from Milwaukee this season. In fact, UWM is 5-5 on the road this season after going just 2-15 away from home last season. The Panthers have also won four of their last six on the road. UWM has enjoyed plenty of success away from Milwaukee in recent years, going 41-40 on the road over the last five-plus seasons. • One Last Big Trip This weekend's road swing to Detroit and Dayton marks the final doubleheader league weekend away from home for the Panthers. In fact, after Saturday's game, UWM will play five of its final six league games at home, with only a road game at Cleveland State remaining. The Panthers do also play a road Bracket Buster contest against an opponent to be determined. • Busting That Bracket Speaking of the ESPN BracketBusters event, the final piece of the Panthers' 2007-08 schedule will be filled in early next week when the BracketBusters pairings are announced. UWM knows it will play a road game in the event, which features games Feb. 22-23. Fourteen of the games will be televised by either ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic or ESPN360. • A Little More TV Time UWM has added another broadcast to its extensive television package with Time Warner Sports. The latest addition is the Feb. 25 home game against Valparaiso, which tips off at 8 p.m. CST. The addition brings to 12 the number of Panther men's games on Time Warner Sports this season. • Winning And Losing UWM has experienced plenty of highs and lows in the first 21 games of the 2007-08 season. In fact, after enduring a six-game losing streak from late November to mid-December, the Panthers put together a six-game winning streak from late December until the loss at Butler Jan. 12. The winning streak marked UWM's first six-game win streak since Milwaukee won eight-straight from Dec. 17, 2005, to Jan. 11, 2006. Since that run, the Panthers have won three more games and enter Saturday's game having won nine of its last 11 contests. With still a month to play, Milwaukee has also shown marked improvement from a season ago. In fact, the Panthers have already exceeded their overall win total and league win total. • Learning The Lessons Of A Challenge Perhaps one of the answers to UWM's much-improved play over the last month of the season comes from the idea the Panthers' non-league schedule truly got them ready for league play. In fact, the five non-league teams that have beaten UWM are a combined 80-19 entering play this weekend, and UWM's overall non-league schedule is ranked 52nd nationally. In case you haven't paid close attention, Wisconsin, Marquette and Drake are all nationally-ranked while Sam Houston State is 16-3 and Northern Iowa is 13-8. • Updating The Roster UWM's roster is officially down to 13 players, with 10 of them active for the rest of the season. Since the start of the year, the Panthers have lost five scholarship players. Those that have departed include Avery Smith (dismissed Nov. 7); Torre Johnson (dismissed Dec. 18); Roman Gentry (left team Dec. 18); Kevin Johnson (left team Dec. 20 - officially dropped from roster Jan. 18); and Tim Flowers (left team Dec. 20 - officially dropped from roster Jan. 23). Of the 13 on the roster, Joe Allen and Zach Holt are both sidelined for the season by injury while Brad Carroll is redshirting this season, though he does dress for games. Walk-ons Deion James and Jason Averkamp are also part of the active roster. • Quick Hits Key reserve Deion James is averaging 10.5 points per game in his last nine outings, reaching double figures six times in that stretch ... Ricky Franklin has reached double figures offensively in four-straight games and has scored at least eight points in 10-straight contests ... UWM attempted 32 three-point shots Jan. 19 at Green Bay, the most by the Panthers in nearly two seasons. Milwaukee tried 32 threes in a game twice in 2005-06 (@ Wisconsin and vs. Detroit). The season-high last year was 31 ... Jan. 7 in Youngstown, the Panthers posted a number of notable defensive numbers. The 39 points scored by Youngstown are the fewest allowed by the Panthers since they allowed just 21 to Mount Senario in December of 2000. Plus, the YSU shooting percentage of 24.5 percent is the third-lowest by a UWM opponent in the school's Division I history ... UWM's 32.1 percent shooting clip against Detroit Jan. 5 marked the lowest shooting percentage by the Panthers in a win since Milwaukee shot 28.9 percent in a 62-58 victory over Green Bay in the 2000 MCC Tournament ... the Panthers set a season-high in making 12 three-point shots in the win over Wright State Jan. 3 ... the nine assists by Deonte Roberts in the win at Wyoming Dec. 29 marked the most by a Panther since Clay Tucker had nine against Green Bay in 2003 ... UWM has already fielded five different starting lineups this season. Seven different players have earned starts. Last season, the Panthers used seven different starting lineups with eight different players earning starts. • Last Time Out Chris Hayes scored 20 points to lead five players in double figures as Detroit claimed its first Horizon League victory of the season with a 72-61 win over UWM Thursday. Paige Paulsen had 14 points to lead Milwaukee. The Titans won the game thanks to a quick second-half start that turned a one-point deficit into an 11-point lead. The Panthers could never truly get on track from there and wound up turning the ball over 18 times in the game while shooting just 39.6 percent from the field. • Where It Went Wrong Not much went right for the Panthers Thursday night in Detroit. In fact, a quick look at a number of stats point to a wide variety of reasons for defeat: - UWM turned the ball over 18 times, its second-highest total of the season. The Panthers had turned the ball over just 17 times in their previous two games combined. - The Panthers were outrebounded, 35-34, dropping their record to 1-6 when they are on the short end of the rebounding numbers. - Milwaukee committed a season-high 25 fouls after committing more than 20 just once in its previous nine games. - Defensively, the Panthers allowed two Detroit players (Chris Hayes and Woody Payne) to set new collegiate-highs while allowing another (Michael Harrington) to get his first career double-double. • Newfound Contributions One of the bright spots of Thursday's game at Detroit came in the form of a pair of unexpected contributions. With so many players struggling in the contest, sophomores Charlie Swiggett and Kaylan Anderson each got extra minutes and each tried to take advantage. Anderson scored a collegiate-best eight points while Swiggett tallied a season-high nine points. • Punch From Paige Senior Paige Paulsen knew he needed to step up with some of UWM's roster changes and the senior has come through. He led the way with 15 points in the loss at Detroit Thursday after grabbing a double-double Saturday. He has now scored in double figures in his last 11 outings and is averaging more than 17 points per game during that span. • Claiming An Honor For the first time this season, a UWM player has been honored by the Horizon League as the league's player of the week. Marcus Skinner claimed the award after recording a pair of double-doubles as the Panthers captured wins over Youngstown State and Cleveland State. In the two games last week, Skinner averaged 15.5 points and 11 rebounds per contest while shooting 65 percent from the field. That capped a run of three-straight double-doubles for Skinner, making him the first Panther to accomplish that feat since Adrian Tigert did it late in the 2005-06 campaign. Unfortunately, Skinner and the Panthers were unable to break an odd trend in league play, as the team that has won the player of the week award has now lost its next game for seven-straight weeks. • Getting Everyone Involved UWM's success in league play has found a number of people getting involved offensively. In fact, the Panthers have had five players reach double figures offensively in two of the last three games. In league play, two players on the active roster are averaging in double figures, with Paige Paulsen (15.0 ppg) and Ricky Franklin (11.4 ppg) leading the way. Deion James, Deonte Roberts and Marcus Skinner all aren't far behind, with James averaging 9.5 ppg, Roberts averaging 8.2 ppg and Skinner 7.8 ppg in Milwaukee's 11 Horizon League contests. • Fighting From Behind It is clearly not the preferred way to claim victory, but the Panthers are making a habit of coming from behind to capture a win. In fact, UWM came from seven points down with eight minutes to play to claim the win Jan. 10 at Valparaiso. That came on the heels of a comeback win Jan. 5 over Detroit that saw the Panthers turn a 14-point deficit with 6:43 left into a two-point win. In all, UWM has turned a double-digit deficit into a win three times this season. Milwaukee came from 17 points behind at Ball State Nov. 14 to win in overtime, the biggest comeback since the Panthers recovered from a 21-point deficit to beat Virginia Tech in overtime in 2001. Then, the Panthers came from 10 down in the second half to beat South Dakota State Nov. 20. • Up Next The Panthers get an extended break before returning to action Feb. 12 against nationally-ranked Butler. That game tips off at 6 p.m. CST and will be televised live nationally by ESPNU. |
