Panthers Head To Peoria For BracketBusters Contest
Feb. 22, 2008
#26: Milwaukee (13-12) @ Bradley (16-12)
Tipoff The Panthers dropped a 74-64 decision at Cleveland State Wednesday night but remain in fourth place in the Horizon League. Deion James scored 18 points off the bench to lead Milwaukee, which has dropped four of its last five games after winning nine of 10. UWM will wrap up the regular season with three home league games next week looking to clinch a home game in the first round of the league tournament. The Braves pulled off a big upset Tuesday night, knocking off nationally-ranked Drake. Bradley did it without third-leading scorer Andrew Warren, who is sidelined with a broken hand. But, guards Jeremy Crouch and Daniel Ruffin combine to average 29 points per game. Saturday's game starts at 8 p.m. CST and will be televised via ESPN's broadband channel, ESPN360. • Game #26 The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team plays its final regular season road game Saturday night at Bradley. • Scouting The Braves Bradley enters Saturday's game coming off an upset win at nationally-ranked Drake Tuesday. The Braves struggled earlier this year when senior Daniel Ruffin was sidelined by injury but have been a different team with him back in the lineup. Ruffin and Jeremy Crouch share team-high scoring honors at 14.5 points per game. Third-leading scorer Andrew Warren (13.1 ppg) is currently sidelined by a broken hand but Theron Wilson also averages in double figures (10.3 ppg). • History Lesson
It has been more than 35 years since UWM and Bradley have squared off in men's basketball, and the two schools have met just twice before. Bradley claimed a 104-68 win in Peoria on Dec. 1, 1965, while Milwaukee captured a 74-72 victory in Peoria on Dec. 7, 1972. • UWM and the MVC Bradley is the third Missouri Valley Conference foe on this year's UWM schedule, with the Panthers having dropped home games to Northern Iowa and Drake during the first month of the season. Milwaukee is looking to snap a slide against teams from the Missouri Valley, with UWM having lost eight-straight to teams from the MVC. Milwaukee's last wins over teams from the Valley came in 2002-03, when the Panthers knocked off both Indiana State and Missouri State. • History In The BracketBuster UWM has participated in all six previous BracketBusters events, appearing on national television five of those years. This season will mark the fourth time UWM has been drawn against a Missouri Valley Conference foe. 2003 - Milwaukee lost at Southern Illinois (66-64) on ESPN2 • The `08-'09 Schedule The BracketBusters matchup with Bradley brings UWM's 2008-09 schedule a little closer to being finalized. Already on the docket for the Panthers are road games at Marquette, Wisconsin and South Dakota State as well as a tournament at Iowa State. Milwaukee is then scheduled to host the Braves in a return game while also welcoming Ball State and next year's BracketBusters opponent to the U.S. Cellular Arena. • Sorting Out The League One week remains in the Horizon League's regular season and still not much has been decided when it comes to seeding for the league tournament. Butler can clinch the top spot with one more win while Wright State can capture the #2 seed with another victory. Cleveland State will be no worse than the third seed with UWM leading a tight pack of teams for the fourth position. The top two seeds for the league tournament receive byes into the semifinals, while teams that finish third through sixth will host a home game in the tournament's first round. The Panthers can finish no higher than their current fourth position but could still mathematically fall to the seventh seed. • On The Road Again After struggling away from home a year ago, the Panthers have found their stride away from Milwaukee a bit more this year. In fact, UWM is 5-7 on the road this season after going just 2-15 away from home last season. The Panthers have also split their last eight on the road. UWM has enjoyed plenty of success away from Milwaukee in recent years, winning 41 games on the road over the last five-plus seasons. • Winning And Losing UWM has experienced plenty of highs and lows in the first 25 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 had a three-game winning streak and a three-game losing streak, with the overall tally finding UWM having won 10 of its last 15 games. With still four regular season games and the league tournament to play, Milwaukee has shown marked improvement from a season ago. In fact, the Panthers have already exceeded their overall win total and league win total. Plus, UWM has won five true road games this season. • Learning The Lessons Of A Challenge Perhaps one of the answers to UWM's much-improved play over the last two months 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 98-30 entering play this weekend, and UWM's overall non-league schedule is ranked 57th nationally. In case you haven't paid attention, Wisconsin, Marquette and Drake are all nationally-ranked while Sam Houston State is 19-5 and Northern Iowa is 15-12. • 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 Sophomore Kaylan Anderson has averaged 6.5 ppg in the last four games in which he has appeared and had six points, five rebounds and four assists Wednesday in Cleveland ... after its win last Saturday, Milwaukee has now beaten its in-state rival from Green Bay 13 times in the last 18 meetings between the two schools. That streak includes wins in nine of the last 10 contests in Milwaukee, with UWM's average margin of victory nearly 17 points per game in those nine wins ... perhaps the biggest oddity in UWM's Saturday win was the scoreless streak each team endured. UWM went 9:38 without a basket before Green Bay went 9:16 without an offensive tally ... the Panthers have rallied from a double-digit second-half deficit to win a game four times this season. Most recently, Milwaukee trailed Green Bay by 12 points with 14 minutes to play Saturday before rallying for a 10-point win ... UWM's three leading scorers in the Green Bay win were all underclassmen and then junior Deion James led the Panthers in scoring Wednesday at Cleveland State ... Allan Hanson made five 3-pointers against Butler Feb. 12 but has made just 12 three-pointers in the other 24 games this season ... Ricky Franklin has reached double figures offensively in five of his last eight games and has scored at least eight points in 12 of his last 14 contests ... UWM has fielded five different starting lineups this season, though the Panthers have used the same starting five over the last 15 games. Seven different players have earned starts. Last season, the Panthers used seven different starting lineups with eight different players earning starts. • Last Time Out Cedric Jackson scored 18 points to lead four players in double figures as Cleveland State captured a 74-64 win over UWM Wednesday night at the Wolstein Center. The Vikings led by as many as 14 points midway through the second half before holding off a late rally by the Panthers. Deion James scored 18 points off the bench to lead Milwaukee, which also got 11 points apiece from Marcus Skinner, Paige Paulsen and Deonte Roberts. Cleveland State shot 60 percent from the field in the second half and made 19-of-25 from the foul line. Meanwhile, UWM shot 44 percent from the field, scored just nine points from the foul line and had 13 turnovers lead to 12 Cleveland State points. • Deion Gets It Done Junior Deion James continues to provide a great spark off the bench for the Panthers and has emerged from a mini-slump over the last two games. First he scored 16 points in the win over Green Bay Saturday and then he led the way with 18 points at Cleveland State Wednesday. Saturday's effort was the first time in four games he had reached double figures but he has now gone into double digits eight times in his last 13 outings. • Breaking The Ice Senior Paige Paulsen has found himself in a shooting slump of late but maybe his second half effort at Cleveland State will break him loose. After going 0-for-3 from the field in the first half Wednesday, Paulsen had made just 16 of his last 62 shots from the field. But, he then made 4-of-5 from the field in the second half to reach 11 points in the game. He has still reached double figures in 13 of his last 15 games and had a streak of 11-straight double figure outings snapped Feb. 2 at Wright State. • The Skinny On Skinner It is getting harder to find the words to describe the individual emergence of senior Marcus Skinner during the 2007-08 season. Last week he scored 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the overtime loss to Butler and then added nine points and 17 rebounds in the win over Green Bay. The 17 rebounds marked the second-most by a Panther in the school's Division I history. Plus, 10 of his 17 rebounds vs. Green Bay came on the offensive end, with 10 offensive rebounds the most by a Panther since the 1995-96 season. And then just look at the change in his numbers through the season. After the loss to UIC Dec. 6, Skinner was averaging 2.2 points and 2.5 rebounds per game. Then, over the next seven games, Skinner averaged 6.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per contest. Since that time (a string of 10 games), Skinner is averaging 12.5 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. • Simple Stats In-depth analysis could lead to a wide variety of "keys to victory" for a UWM team that has dropped four of its last five outings yet has still won 10 of its last 15 games overall. But, two simple stats might point out the real keys to winning. First, UWM is 12-4 when it either wins in the rebounding battle or the numbers are even, while the Panthers are 1-8 when being outrebounded. Next, UWM is 12-3 when it scores 70 or more points but just 4-8 when allowing 70 or more. • Change Is Good With the number of roster changes UWM has endured throughout the 2007-08 season, the team's overall individual stats can be a bit deceiving. In fact, a look at the individual stats since the Panthers began playing with their current roster Dec. 19 shows great balance and solid figures in a number of category. Numbers from the last 15 games: Paige Paulsen 15.3 ppg. 6.7 rpg Ricky Franklin 10.3 ppg. 4.1 rpg Marcus Skinner 10.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 57.5% Deion James 10.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg Deonte Roberts 8.7 ppg, 3.6 rpg Team Rbs. UWM 36.3/OPP 34.5 Made FTs UWM 226/OPP 194• Crashing The Glass The Panthers had done a solid job this season of making up for less than stellar field goal shooting by crashing the glass only to see Cleveland State claim a 35-27 rebounding edge Wednesday while allowing UWM just four offensive rebounds. That was in stark contrast to last Saturday when UWM collected 20 offensive rebounds in the win over Green Bay. It marked a season high in the category and the most by the Panthers since they tallied 23 in an overtime win against Detroit last season. Milwaukee also had 27 second-chance points, its high mark this season. • Improving The Defense There is no question much-improved play on defense is a big reason for UWM's winning ways of late. After the Panthers fell to UIC Dec. 6, they had allowed 80 or more points in five-straight games and were allowing opponents 79 points per game and a 48.2 percent shooting clip. Since that time, opponents are shooting just 43.8 percent from the field and scoring just 65.1 points per game. The pinnacle of the defensive performances may have come Jan. 7 in Youngstown, when UWM allowed just 39 points and 24.5 percent shooting. • Up Next UWM hosts Valpo Monday at 8 p.m. |
