Panthers Blow Early Lead, Fall To Drake

The UWM Men’s basketball team suffered its seventh loss of the season on Thursday night, losing 75-61 at home against the Drake Bulldogs. Drake, whose record improves to 6-1 with the victory, was able to dominate the majority of the game despite a hot start from the Panthers.

Milwaukee began the game on an 8-0 run, but their lead quickly crumbled when Drake started to get hot midway through the first half, especially from 3-point range.

“Disappointing loss tonight. It felt like we started out with a great amount of energy that gave us a decent lead,” UWM head coach Pat Baldwin said. “I think the bottom line is we gave up some open 3’s towards the middle part of the first half that opened them up and gave them confidence. That started their run that did us in, and we just couldn’t recover after that.”

The Bulldogs did in fact waste little time in recovering from Panther’s fast start, taking the lead with just under 9:00 minutes to go in the first half after a Brady Ellingson 3-pointer put them up 15-14. The visitors proceeded to go on a 23-8 run to finish the half, establishing a 38-22lead at halftime. Senior guard Nick Norton went 4-5 from three-point range with a total of 14 points in the first for Drake, which was crucial to the team being up 16 at the break.

The Panthers struggled from the floor all night, shooting just 34 percent for the game and managing to make only 4-23 from beyond the arc. While they were competitive with Drake in the second half, the Bulldog’s lead was simply too much to overcome for Milwaukee, despite a 19-point effort from Darius Roy.  

In the second half, Milwaukee was nearly perfect from the free-throw line, making 17-18. The Panthers knew they were in a hole, so getting to the line was crucial to any chance of a comeback.

“We were in the bonus, so what I encouraged our guys to do was get downhill and get to the paint,” said Baldwin, asked about trying to overcome the deficit. “When you go to the line and stop the clock, that helps you get back in the game. Darius got to the line a lot in the second half. We want our guys to be aggressive and try to get some easy baskets.

“Without a question this is a disappointing loss, because we were ready for this game,” Baldwin said. “Ultimately, Drake took control and finished off the first half really well, and kind of just cruised doing all of the things they needed to do to keep us at bay. We need to regroup, get better,and learn from this. We have a lot of work to do.”

Ultimately, the second half effort was not enough, as Milwaukee came 14 points short of a comeback.

With the loss, the Panthers fall to a disappointing 2-7 on the season. It is the team’s third straight loss. Milwaukee will begin conference play on December 29^th against Green Bay, and are hoping to turn things around before that point.