Cyclones overwhelm Panthers

The Panthers are getting better each game if you watch closely... (Photo: Ames Tribune)


(Subheadline: 27 Panther turnovers lead to 27 Cyclone points)

Things got off to a bad start Sunday night when Milwaukee turned it over on each of our first three possessions of the gameThis resulted in two easy uncontested buckets and another pair of made free throws for the Cyclones. Things would only get worse for the Panthers.

At about the 15:00 mark, after Osun Osunniyi threw down a thundering one handed jam, Lundy mercifully called a timeout to create a bit of a reset. To be fair, there was a listed attendance at Hilton Coliseum of 10,000+ so nerves may have been an issue at the beginning of this one for the Panthers.

The guys did settle down eventually but ball control (specifically ball safety) continued to be a thorn in our side all game. We racked up- with a 27(!) tally- the most turnovers by a Milwaukee Panther team since 1996. 😳 And in a game where we actually had a shot at closing the gap in the second half- you can't have all those dead giveaways.

We went into the halftime break down only 11 and it seemed like we had a legitimate shot at beating Iowa State. We were outrebounding them. We were speeding up the game. But we were also in for a big wakeup call in the second half. The Cyclones did not let up one iota and in just over 6 minutes into the second frame they stretched an 11pt lead out to a 21pt lead (53-32). An Iowa State alley-oop reverse jam with 55 seconds remaining served as the metaphorical fork indicating our defeat.


We were done and beat, 68-53 the final score. Next game up. But first some game takeaways:

  • The offense was stuck in the backcourt;
  • We played semi-effective man to man defense most of the game.
  • Mistakes will kill us every time; shot clock expired before an open look shot could be taken
  • Zach Howland will get significant minutes- as a true freshman; he played great, fearless minutes against Iowa State and helped fuel a late mini-comeback Panther run that fell far short due to... you guessed it- turnovers 😞
  • Markeith Browning (9pts, 7reb) continues to play well.
  • Angelo Stuart and Ahmad Rand were uncharacteristically quiet in this game; BJ Freeman led the Panthers with 11pts, but also committed 6 turnovers.
  • Teamwork makes the dream work - we were not sharing the ball- at all. 8 total assists and only Markeith Browning had more than a single assist. That indicates a lack of any kind of coordinated offensive execution or 3-on-1 and 2-on-1 transition attacks
  • Lundy continues to tweak the starting 5 and overall rotation; hopefully we will have that worked out by the end of the MTE this coming weekend.

"We're playing good defense," said Lundy. "We've just got to find some way to run some semblance of a coherent offense. If we do that, we can win some games. But we're not going to win too many games turning the ball over 27 times." -Coach Lundy

 

On it's face, this loss still sucks. But dig a little deeper and I think we all see several positives despite an L. Losing to good teams on the road is a lot easier to take than losing to say Robert Morris at home. But a loss is a loss.

On the bright side, we managed to play a P5 team without completely embarrassing ourselves. In fact, we looked better than we did against Purdue a week ago. At this rate we may be able to stack some serious wins. But first up- we have to beat St. Thomas at Panther Arena this Wednesday afternoon.

There is a lot of great college basketball to enjoy this Thanksgiving week. Let's stack some more good days and games and pivot away from this loss as soon as the team has learned everything they can learn from the game film.

With 5 of the next 6 games at home, and none of the opponents significantly better or worse than us, we now have a nice runway for take off... 🛫


Let's win every single one.



*the Brew City Classic MTE this upcoming weekend on the Milwaukee campus where we will be playing UC Davis, Boston and SE Missouri State; come on back to campus and support the team.


go panther
stack good days. 

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