UWM drops its second straight home game as Purdue-Fort Wayne drains 13 three-pointers

[ad_1]

UW-Milwaukee head coach Bart Lundy reacts on the sideline during the game against Akron in the MKE Tip-Off, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

All of a sudden, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena is no longer a safe haven for its resident college basketball team.

After having run off nine straight victories to open the season UWM has now dropped two straight, with its latest 81-79 setback at the hands of Purdue-Fort Wayne on Sunday afternoon an especially frustrating one.

The Panthers allowed a season-high 13 three-pointers, and none was bigger than the dagger Rasheed Bello drained from the top of the key with the shot clock running down in the second half.

BOX SCORE: Purdue-Fort Wayne 81, UWM 79

It snapped a 70-70 tie, and put the Mastodons ahead to stay as they finished off the sweep in the teams’ regular-season series.

“Credit to Fort Wayne. They played better basketball than we did tonight,” said coach Bart Lundy, whose team dropped into third place in the Horizon League standings at 15-8, 8-4. Fort Wayne now resides in second at 16-8, 9-4.

“The way we’re built, we can’t give up 81 points on our own floor. We scored 79, and that should be enough. We gave up 13 threes, and Bello hit just a massive dagger three. That’s what everybody will remember, and that’s a heck of a play from a heck of a player.

“But it’s the off-the-ball laziness with our hands and our closeouts, and the (lack of) urgency that really crushed us tonight.”

The game, which featured nine lead changes and eight ties, came down to a couple big sequences in the second half.

The first came roughly midway through, when after scoring on a putback to pull the Panthers to within 52-49, Erik Pratt was whistled for a technical foul in the aftermath.

Bello, a 6-foot dynamo from Chicago who played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Division II UW-Parkside, hit both ensuing free throws and then a three two possessions later to shift the momentum squarely back in Fort Wayne’s favor.

“I told them (after…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/uwm-drops-second-straight-home-234721170.html

Author : Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Publish date : 2025-02-02 23:47:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.