North Park 12/11/22

[reginaldkdwight]

Trash first half with lackluster play. Took control in the 2nd half and won easily, wont have a home game for awhile now so should really see what this teams made of.

[Cactus Panther]

Dec 11, 2022 15:32:08 GMT -6 Duct_Tape_Pounce said:

29-9 so far in the second half. It’s been a whole lot better, and North Park is playing like a D3 team.

One thing I’ve noticed… with a short bench and a fairly big lead, Vince hasn’t seen the court yet. VBJ and Zach Howell have seen significant minutes, but Vince hasn’t gotten off the bench (and it looks like he’s available). I wonder if there’s something going on with him… he played a bit as recently as the Green Bay game.

According to Scott Warras, Vincent Miszkiewicz was questionable because of illness. That may explain why he did not see the floor at Chattanooga either.

[Cactus Panther]

Dec 11, 2022 15:26:59 GMT -6 tyrunner0097 said:

Dec 11, 2022 15:20:49 GMT -6 panther said:

I think I'm just going to congratulate Bart on the game, then let him be at Goolsby's. He's looked sour all 2nd half

Actually he was pretty giddy on the radio post game show. No need to let him be. Ask him the scheduling questions I listed in another thread.

[tyrunner0097]

Didn't see him there. Oh well.

[ghostofdylan]

Back from the game. I'm very happy with the outcome and even happier that the non-D1 portion of our schedule is done. Like Cactus, I'm not a fan of these games in the middle of the season. For what it's worth, this was far and away the best non-D1 we've played this year, but one that clearly lost its legs in the second half on the second day of a back-to-back. Take the win, which as a reminder have been exceedingly tough to come by the last six years, and move forward. This feels like an 11-9 or 12-8 team against Horizon League opponents.

[FTA1982]

The Keon Edwards coming out party. He looked every bit the part of an impact player. Made 3s, rebounded around the basket and finished. Great game by him.

[nickpanther]

i was at the game. the first 2 minutes were - well , bad. and the entire first half was nip and tuck, only leading at half because of making 2 free throws on a shooting foul at the buzzer.second half was more like what you expect against a d3 scho0ol. 54-26 spread, highlight level dunks, and imposing our will. we would have topped 100 if we had played the first half like we did the second.

[Cactus Panther]

Keon Edwards leads a second-half surge as UW-Milwaukee handles Division III North Park
Todd Rosiak
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It's taken a little time, but Keon Edwards is finally getting his feet underneath him a bit.

The sophomore guard showed his high-major Division I pedigree on Sunday afternoon when he helped turn what was a tightly contested game into a rout with a strong second-half performance against Division III North Park.

UW-Milwaukee scored 23 of the first 28 points out of intermission with Edwards accounting for 13 of those en route to a 92-63 victory at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, running the team's home record to 7-1.

Edwards, a transfer who'd previously played at DePaul and Nebraska, finished with a college-high 15 points while freshman guard Elijah Jamison also recorded a personal best and game high with 19 points while hitting all four of his three-point attempts.

Markeith Browning II scored all 12 of his points in the first half and Jalen Johnson added 11 for the Panthers.

"There's a lot of competition on this team," coach Bart Lundy said in reference to Edwards. "We've had guys rise and fall throughout, and that may still occur. But he's starting to really earn those minutes."

UWM (8-4) held a one-point lead after the first half only to blow North Park out of the water to start the second.

Ahmad Rand provided the spark with three monster dunks, but that wasn't all. He also generated a couple breaks going the other way with shot alters and then dished to Edwards – making just his second start – for a couple of his baskets.

Edwards kept the 23-5 run going with a pair of three-pointers from the right wing, then two Jamison free throws capped it to make it a 61-42 game.

Edwards, who came into the game 10th on the Panthers in scoring with a 3.7 points-per game average, connected on 5 of 8 shots overall, 2 of his 3 three-pointers and 1 of 2 free throws while also grabbing four rebounds (three offensive) in 19 minutes.

Rand, meanwhile, provided his usual energy with six points, a team-high seven rebounds and three more blocked shots in 18 minutes.

"Ahmad's dunks and Keon's offensive rebounds and threes really broke it open," Lundy said. "Then we had really good contributions from a lot of guys. Elijah Jamison was shooting the cover off of it. Jalen had a great stretch. This team really keeps having different guys step up for it."

North Park, located in Chicago, arrived in Milwaukee having beaten Augustana on Saturday night to run its record to 7-1.

Coached by former Wisconsin Lutheran College associate head coach Sean Smith, the Warriors jumped out to a 9-0 lead, prompting Lundy to burn a quick timeout to regroup.

The Panthers responded by running off 17 of the next 19 points but couldn't sustain the momentum.

Three-pointers on consecutive possessions late in the first half put North Park back in front before four free throws in the final 52.8 seconds allowed UWM to head into halftime with a 38-37 lead.

UWM was playing without three players – starter BJ Freeman and reserves Vincent Miszkiewicz and Brian Taylor II – due to illness.

"Give North Park a lot of credit. I tried to impress on the team how scrappy and tough they were," Lundy said. "I was worried about the game. They just beat the team that was picked to win their league by 20.

"They jumped out 9-0, we had to regroup. It was a dogfight the whole first half. I thought we came back out in the second half with better energy and way more respect for our opponent."

The Panthers play only once – at Rhode Island on Dec. 22 – before the resumption of Horizon League play on Dec. 29.

"We're going to take the next two days off, then we'll come back and compete and rev them up," said Lundy. "Milwaukee's an interesting place; once we're through finals, we've got five weeks of no class. People who have been here in the past have told me that's a negative, so we want to flip that and try to make it a positive to where we're getting these guys better."

[GoPanthers33]

A long break until the next game. Hopefully in that time they can shake off whatever the first half was and continue to improve. It's hard to take much from these D-3 games.

[ghostofdylan]

Bluntly, I'm good with Keon starting at the wing going forward. He tends to play within himself a little better than B.J., a notoriously slow starter who would provide some nice firepower off the bench.

[tyrunner0097]

Dec 11, 2022 20:42:55 GMT -6 ghostofdylan said:

Bluntly, I'm good with Keon starting at the wing going forward. He tends to play within himself a little better than B.J., a notoriously slow starter who would provide some nice firepower off the bench.

Keon also provides some extra length on defense. I feel like BJ is just a little too feast-or-famine.

[chipanthers45]

Keon looked awesome. Terrible first half, but we looked a lot better in the second. Credit to North Park though, they looked like a very good D3 team.

[milwsport]

I don't know what Coach Lundy said at half time, but I do know that whatever it was plus the addition of Rand and Edwards made a huge difference in the second half.

[ghostofdylan]

Dec 12, 2022 3:00:51 GMT -6 milwsport said:

I don't know what Coach Lundy said at half time, but I do know that whatever it was plus the addition of Rand and Edwards made a huge difference in the second half.

I'm sure that BL peeled some paint off the locker-room walls at halftime, but there were many variables that contributed to our victory. North Park was playing less than 24 hours after winning a conference home game over Augustana; the Vikings played much of the second half without Jordan Boyd, their best player, and Marquise Jackson, their primary penetrator who left with an injury; we came out with a lot more fire in the second half after a lackluster opening stanza and appeared to find a frontline combination that works in Edwards and Rand. Here's hoping that we see a lot more of both players going forward.

[Pounce Needs Pals]