The Horizon League HC/NBA son duel did not live up to its billing
Just two days after beating the brakes off Green Bay in a breeze of a victory, your Milwaukee Panthers ran into a buzzsaw in Detroit last night and were pummled to the atonal tune of 85-60. The Titans were coming off a long abscence due to COVID and sure looked like they were itching to get back on the court.
Our Panthers were not prepared for this. The DMU zone defense caused us to pass the ball around the perimeter and settle for horrible 3pt attempts (we were 6-26 from 3 on the game). Detroit's NBA prospect Antoine Davis (39pts, 7reb, 6ast) gave the NBA scouts in attendence all they were looking for and more; unfortunately our own NBA prospect had to sit out due to a calf injury sustained in our victory over Green Bay.
And so what was supposed to be a nationally televised Head Coach Father-NBA son "family against family battle" turned into a garden variety beatdown of the Pat Baldwin Sr.-led Panthers. I like our coach as a person. But I really don't like how he seems very stubborn and resistent to change or even simply entertaining new ideas. I hope the assistant coaching staff and PBS can get together and figure this thing out.
Fans are pissed.
This team has proved it can win without PBJ and last night Josh Thomas (19pts, 6reb) put forth an incredible effort to keep us within 25. Without him this would have gone down as one of our most brutal losses in program history. Being on ESPN2, this was almost certainly the most brutal Panther loss ever broadcast to a national audience.
From the opening tip to final buzzer it was a bloodbath of Detroit daggers. 3ptr after 3ptr (Davis sunk 8-13, Noah Waterman 4-7- as a team they shot 18-35, good for 51.4%!). Why our defense could not contest any of these daggers is unknown. It seems to be a coaching issue as our man-to-man defense has worked well as of late. Similarily we seemed totally puzzled by Detroit's zone defense, something we should have been planning for and analyzing far in advance of the contest.
This game was never close. There isn't much to rehash because the entire game consisted of Antoine Davis torching us from 3pt and Detroit's defense making us look like a JUCO team.
See all the solid blue circles out in NBA range? That's Antoine Davis
PBJ Watch 💬: Concern over what is happening with Baldwin Jr. ranges from "no big deal, he's probably just nursing a nagging injury; we need him for the HLT" to "his absences are due to his NBA aspirations, so does he even expect to play in more than 50% of our remaining games?".
I have no idea which line of thinking is correct. And that is due entirely to the astounding opaqueness which the Milwaukee Athletic Department thinks is OK to operate with in respect to what it tells fans vs. what is actually happening behind the scenes.
Samba Kane has been out with turf toe forever but he continues to dress for some games and seems to have zero problem throwing down reverse jams in warmups. Browning was labeled as "out for 5-6 weeks" about... 5-6 weeks ago. Again no update, no nothing.
We are operating what is supposed to be a public-facing marketing arm of the university as if every piece of information is sworn to secrecy and cannot be leaked to... the target audience? How in the heck are UWM students and alumni, Milwaukeeans and current and potential Panther fans in general- supposed to get behind that? And people wonder why we don't have a podcast or radio show anymore. There is no information to work with or talk about. There is zero trust now.
As you can see, we were never even close
With all that said, nothing cures the blues and the depressive action of zooming out and being taken aback by all the problems and bleak future of our Athletic Department- like winning basketball games. In spite of all the craziness and secrecy, if we go in to the O'Rena tomorrow afternoon and beat the Oakland Grizzlies on their own court, our hopes will rise again. And we can at least for this moment, this season, enjoy some meaningful games to look forward to (Life is all about having things to look forward to; convince me I'm wrong).
Tomorrow will say a lot about where transparency is ultimately going, but more importantly, it'll tell us (with PBJ, Kane, Browning or without) whether we have any business even holding on to the idea of the Panthers winning the Horizon League Tourney.
I've been really angry about our current situation lately and I apologize for my tone and anything I've said that is completly wrong and perhaps insulting. Unfortunately when you create an information void, that void gets filled with all sorts of rumour and speculation because the fans who love this team, whether you care about them or report on the team truthfully or not, are going to talk about this team. That is just a certainty. We are Panthers and want to see this program reach its great potential.
For Pete's sake: just tell us the truth.
go panthers
press on.
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