|
|
Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Jan 13, 2023 7:52:43 GMT -6
1 of the best crowd I’ve seen in the last 5 years. If students were back it would feel much better. Nice to even see some students at the game last night. I remember years with the .500 teams and nobody showed up. |
|
|
|
Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Jan 13, 2023 7:54:50 GMT -6
Case of someone who had a ticket, showed up last night. |
|
|
|
Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Jan 13, 2023 8:18:35 GMT -6
During the sports report on Jay Weber's show on 1130AM just now, not only did they mention the score of the game, he and Scott Dolphin both encouraged listeners to start going to Panther games. Fantastic! Scott Dolphin does well in sports report. Also, that plug is a billion times better than a hit on Sparky's podcast and 101.7 FM. |
|
|
|
Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Jan 13, 2023 8:27:47 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by Petes on Jan 13, 2023 8:37:47 GMT -6
The activity on Twitter about the team hasn’t been higher. The crowds will begin to catch up to this excitement.
|
|
|
|
Post by ghostofdylan on Jan 13, 2023 8:48:36 GMT -6
That seems like a substantial underestimate. I would have guessed the turnout started with a 2. |
|
|
|
Post by PantherNation on Jan 13, 2023 9:10:06 GMT -6
The thing that has impressed me in the games I have watched this season (all wins) is how the Panthers play themselves into double-digit leads which the opposition has difficulty overcoming. Teams have made close games, but the Panthers seem to be able to get leads that are just a little too much to overcome in the end. Query: who is paying Larrivee's salary? You'd think he was supposed to be officially impartial. I don't expect a total homer, but geez it's hard to get a compliment for the Panthers out of him. He’s horrendous You think Wayne Larrivee is horrendous?! I don’t know what you’re smoking but the guy is a legend. We are beyond lucky to have him calling our home games. |
|
|
|
Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Jan 13, 2023 9:15:32 GMT -6
The activity on Twitter about the team hasn’t been higher. The crowds will begin to catch up to this excitement. Facebook is still a thing for older people. There will be improvments I hear to that site. Not sure if UWM does Instagram. I believe the younger kids do that? |
|
|
|
Post by FTA1982 on Jan 13, 2023 9:24:50 GMT -6
IMO local news is the biggest thing for old people. If we keep getting featured on the local news, we will hit that group.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Jan 13, 2023 10:02:47 GMT -6
'This is my city': First-place UWM makes another statement with their play, then their words
Curt Hogg
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
BJ Freeman finished the acrobatic shot through traffic and skipped back down to the other end of the court. He assumed his stance on defense, prepared to do what was needed to maintain the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s 11-point lead he had helped build.
Northern Kentucky called timeout instead. Freeman stood up straight and let his thoughts be heard, his emotions known
“This is my city!” he shouted.
Freeman is not from Milwaukee. He’s a native of Selma, North Carolina, and in his first season at UWM, coming to the school following a year at Dodge City Community College in Kansas. Freeman had never been to Milwaukee before joining the team.
But he, like the rest of the Panthers, has bought into head coach Bart Lundy’s program, into what it takes to turn a program around, into the name on the front of the jersey.
After his first exclamation on the floor, Freeman paused and stared into the crowd of 1,598. Then, he repeated himself.
“This is my city!” he said with even more vigor.
It sure was Thursday night.
Back at home for the first time in over a month, the Panthers nearly led wire-to-wire as they defeated Northern Kentucky, 80-75, in a battle for first place in the Horizon League at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
Freeman set the pace with a career-high 28 points for UWM (12-5, 6-1), which won its fourth consecutive conference game and moved a game in front of the Norse (10-8, 5-2) in the league.
The Panthers’ message? Milwaukee, take notice.
“We’ve emphasized that we are the city’s team,” Lundy said. “I think what BJ’s saying resonates that message. This team, they believe that. They look around our campus and there’s city folks on our campus. They’re from Milwaukee. We take a lot of pride in that.”
The Panthers entered the night going up against the conference’s second-leading scorer, Marques Warrick, without a scorer in the top 15 per game in the conference themselves. While the UWM defense antagonized Warrick all night, Freeman made a statement.
“I knew I was going to have to stay here for a long time, so I was going to have to get used to Milwaukee,” Freeman said. “Milwaukee fans have been showing me love and everything, showing the team love, so me saying that, it just feels like home.”
The 6-foot-6 wing was ultra-efficient, needing only 11 field goal attempts to reach his 28 points. Freeman went 5 for 8 from three and has scored at least 23 points in three of the last four games, a stretch during which he’s hit 16 of 31 attempts from deep.
“I wouldn’t even say I’m really in a groove right now,” Freeman said. “I just trust my teammates, trust our coaching staff. They give me the confidence every day at practice to keep playing, keep doing what I’m supposed to do. We just follow what Coach Lundy says. So there’s got to be a big shoutout to my team and the staff for just believing in me.”
His outburst of city pride came at the tail end of back-to-back baskets that stretched the Panthers’ lead to 72-61 with 4:24 left. The Norse responded with an 8-2 run out of the timeout to draw within six points again and would get within four on a pair of free throws with 17 seconds remaining, but three free throws from Markeith Browning II and Freeman sealed the win.
UWM won in spite of Northern Kentucky taking 75 field goals compared to just 47 for the hosts. The Panthers struggled on the defensive glass, allowing 17 offensive rebounds, but held the Norse to just 38.7% shooting overall and 20.6% from three. The Panthers also turned the ball over 22 times but buoyed that carelessness with the ball by shooting 55.3% from the field and 47.8% from three-point range.
Kentrell Pullian scored 15 points and Ahmad Rand added 11 for UWM.
Trevon Faulkner’s 25 points paced the Norse as their leading scorer struggled to get going all night; Warrick finished with 16 points but had to work to get it, taking 21 shots and hitting only seven.
UWM raced out to a 43-31 lead with a torrid-shooting first 20 minutes. BJ Freeman scored 14 points while sinking four three-pointers as the Panthers as a whole shot 63 percent (17 for 27) from the field and buried eight triples.
The Norse cut the deficit to one midway through the second half as the Panthers couldn’t buy a basket, going seven minutes between field goals. But an Ahmad Rand basket in the paint snapped a 13-2 Northern Kentucky run and, thanks to some undisciplined play by the Norse, the Panthers were quickly able to rattle off a 9-0 spurt to push the lead back to 10. Much of that run came at the free throw line.
“We were fortunate to get to the line,” Lundy said. “I think that’s really what got us out of the hole and stopped the drought. It’s those moments with this young team where I’m standing over there going, ‘Okay, we’ll learn something here. Which way are we going to go?’”
More often than not this year, things have broken in a positive way for UWM when adversity hits.
It’s only January 12, of course, but if the Panthers are playing like this in two months there may not be anyone in the Horizon that can keep them from dancing.
Lundy vows that he won’t let his team think that far ahead. What they will do, though, is look back at the past, to before this season began.
“We were picked ninth,” Lundy said. “We don’t talk about being first – we talk about being picked ninth. I think they have a chip on their shoulder about it.”
|
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Jan 13, 2023 10:05:18 GMT -6
Comments from JS Online subscribers:
Kenneth J -Nice to see a third Wisconsin D1 school being successful. Keep it going!
William M - It was a great game and a fun time with a loud raccous (sic) crowd cheering wildly. Freeman is right this IS his City and that goes for the rest of the Panthers too.
Daniel B - Time to get down to the "arena"!
|
|
|
|
Post by TBone on Jan 13, 2023 11:08:30 GMT -6
The 6-foot-6 wing was ultra-efficient, needing only 11 field goal attempts to reach his 28 points. Freeman went 5 for 8 from three and has scored at least 23 points in three of the last four games, a stretch during which he’s hit 16 of 31 attempts from deep. Guess how many times the highest-rated prospect in the school's history and only first-round draft pick scored 23 or more... |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2023 12:10:07 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by GoPanthersGo23 on Jan 13, 2023 12:46:37 GMT -6
Now if we could just get people to call us Milwaukee...I saw multiple news people saying different versions of UWM, UW Milwaukee, etc. I know that is beating a dead horse, so I won't harp on it more.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Jan 13, 2023 13:00:07 GMT -6
Now if we could just get people to call us Milwaukee...I saw multiple news people saying different versions of UWM, UW Milwaukee, etc. Including the so called "legend," Wayne Larivee. I cringed when I heard "UWM" from him last night. We need more cowbe..., I mean Scott Warras. |
|
