Beaten, battered and bruised. Add a third straight loss- to our state and conference rival- to the pile of recent bad Panther news.
The Green Bay Phoenix (8-8, 3-2) thrashed Milwaukee (7-9, 3-2) throughout most of the first half before a brief Panther run closed a 20-point Phoenix lead down to 14.
And the second half featured a steady chipping away of Green Bay's lead until Milwaukee finally got in front- by as many as 5 for a brief few of the final minutes. But UWGB reclaimed the lead in the closing minutes and won the first Battle of I-43 in the end, 79-76.
Sometimes injuries just cannot be overcome. Team resources (players) are finite. And the quality and experience go down with each level that needs to be promoted to replace the (usually veteran) starters. We have made do with these injuries pretty well up to now, but I think Fields' injury is the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Milwaukee began this game completely flat and lost because of it (Photo by Riley Lom, Mid-Major Basketball)
We are out 3 guards who all could have been All-Horizon this season. Fields is an anchor that is not directly replaceable by Konneh or Franklin.
We were able to overcome the loss of Lovelace Jr. And then we were able to shoulder the burden without Hubbard. And then we lost Stevie Elam and still somehow, we soldiered on, winning some contests.
But with Faizon Fields now out as well to injury, it feels like the injuries have decimated our ranks to the point where we are at a steep disadvantage that we might not be able to overcome this season.
The good news is that if we do, this will be a comeback season for the storybooks like the '10-'11 campaign in which we won our final 7 games and had a chance to defeat national runner-up Butler in the Horizon League Championship in front of ~11,000 at Panther Arena (then the "US Cellular Arena").
All that said losing to Green Bay still feels terrible; we'll need to even the series when they visit Milwaukee the afternoon of Sunday, February 15th.
Next up is definitely no slouch and will require everything we've got to win and start to turn this season around: Northern Kentucky (12-5, 4-2) at Panther Arena this Friday at 7pm.
go panthers.
press on. 🏆🏀
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