So far, so-so

Milwaukee prepares for battle against three opponents in three days this weekend downtown at Panther Arena

Your Milwaukee Panthers are four games into the '24-'25 campaign and well, things aren't going as swimmingly as preseason predictions suggested they might- but things also aren't too bad.

After putting the hurt on the lowly DIII program at Lakeland College 118-62 at the Klotsche Center, we dropped the next two, far more serious contests on the road to Northern Iowa (87-68) and Longwood (76-62).

All the things that have plagued Lundy's Panther teams in his first two seasons' non-conference losses were evident in these losses: our perimeter defense was a sieve, our offense was anything but pass-first, and generally, we played stupid and dug ourselves into holes we could never climb out of. "Tilt the floor basketball" this was not.

Kentrell Pullian, AJ McKee, Themus Fulks and Jamichael Stillwell were bright spots in an otherwise forgettable pair of dropped road contests. While the new guards are slowly settling into roles that suggest they won't be shooting the lights out on any given night- they are proving themselves as effective defenders, facilitators and definitely have a knack for getting the ball to the cup.

But let's be honest- the losses to UNI and Longwood were bad. We were never really close in either of these games and neither of these opponents is a program we should be so challenged to compete with.

And then there is the injury and personnel woes. Danilo Jovanovich is likely out for the season with torn cartilage in his elbow. And preseason All-Horizon selection (deep breath)- Erik Pratt may have played his final game in a Panther uniform.

There is no word as to why, but he's been absent from the lineup since the Longwood game and all comments from Lundy indicate that there is an impasse and Pratt either needs to do something to earn his way back onto the roster, or start making other future plans.

No clue what happened and it sucks because he was likely our best perimeter threat that we really could use in the battles ahead. As with most things we will likely find out what exactly caused all this, long after this initial confusion... To their credit, the Panther Hoops program has gotten much better at keeping a lid on the internal dis/functions of the program (remember @tonyt during the Baldwin era? 😆).

But fear not, Panther fans; things have started to look up.

Milwaukee cruised to victory against a diminished Duquesne team last night

Last night we took down the '23-'24 Atlantic 10 Champion, Duquense, 80-74, in a contest that was surprisingly dominated by the road team who was paid to compete against the Dukes. The Panthers controlled the game and played with a comfortable lead virtually from the opening tip to the final buzzer.

Duquense tried several times to mount a comeback and while they were able to stem the tide and shrink the Panther lead to low single digits (particularly in the final 2 minutes of the game), they could never capture the lead outside of a couple runs in the early minutes of the first half.

Milwaukee put four starters in double digits. Pullian led all scorers with 22 points to go along with 7 rebounds and 4 steals. Lovelace came off the bench to score 11 including a key triple to help quiet a surging Duke's offense in the closing minutes.

So at 2-2, Milwaukee is looking to the 3 home games this weekend in the Cream City Challenge to make some hay, improve the record, and get the experience and gelling we so badly need.

Up first is Portland State on Friday night followed by Wofford Saturday afternoon and St. Thomas Sunday.

Let's hope things break Milwaukee's way and that we are talking about a 5-2 Panther record next week.

go panthers.

tilt the floor. 🏆🏀