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 the game) you get a technical, you’re not going to play the rest of the game,” Lundy said. “Probably shouldn’t have played Erik the rest of this game because he’s gotten multiple technicals to the point where it’s ridiculous. I don’t even know what he said, but he said something, and it’s unnecessary, and we’re losing at the time.
“If you’re going to play championship basketball, you’ve got to have character, and you’ve got to not make those (mistakes).”
UWM remained within striking distance, however, and starting with a Faizon Fields three-point play ran off nine straight to tie it at 70-70 with 3 minutes 36 seconds remaining.
Enter Bello, who with the shot clock winding down buried a cold-blooded three – and fifth of the game in 10 attempts. One possession later he fed Eric Mulder for an easy layup after a missed three by the Panthers, and the Mastodons hit 6 of 8 free throws the rest of the way to hold on.
UWM did have a final look to potentially win the game, but a prayer from just inside half court by Themus Fulks was far off-line.
“He had bounced it a bunch of times, and I think he gave AJ (McKee) a little in-and-out, and then the side step,” Lundy said. His team came in allowing opponents 31.8% shooting from three, good for second in the conference. “It was a heck of a shot. They’re extremely hard to guard, and then guarding them for whatever it was 25-plus seconds, and he shoots a step-back three.
“That was the shot of the game. That won the game for them.”
Fulks scored 15 points, Fields and Pratt 13, McKee 12 and Kentrell Pullian 11 for the Panthers, who actually out-shot the Mastodons, 47% to 46.7%, posted a plus-11 margin on the glass and hit all 11 of their free throws.
But Fort Wayne’s 13 threes, Bello’s 23 points and Jalen Jackson’s 22 were too much to overcome.
“I’ve got to figure out lineups that won’t give up 81 on our home floor,” said Lundy. “I’ll figure out the guys that have their ears open and their hearts in the right place, with their intensity, and those are the guys I’ll roll with. There are guys sitting on our bench right now that aren’t getting a lot of opportunity, that are playing really hard every day.
“You can’t give up 81 on your own floor.”
When the Panthers lost by the same 81-79 score to Robert Morris on Jan. 19, they responded with resounding victories at Wright State and Northern Kentucky.
They play at IU-Indianapolis on Wednesday and then at 17-6, 11-1 Cleveland State on Friday.
Can they rebound with two more road wins and get back on track?
“That’s a pretty deflated locker room right now, because we want to win the league,” Lundy said. “I just told them that this week, if you guys want a chance at winning the league, you’ve got to win on the road this week. We’ve still got a lot we can play for this week, and that’ll determine what the rest of February is and what direction we’re headed.
“I hope it’s for a championship.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM allows season-high 13 three-pointers in second straight home loss
