Feb. 23, 2008

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PEORIA, Ill. - Jeremy Crouch scored 24 points, Theron Wilson had 15 and Sam Maniscalco 13 as Bradley University captured an 84-72 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Saturday night in an O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters contest at Carver Arena.

The Panthers (13-13) were within three points with 14 minutes to play but a 24-10 run over the next six minutes put the Braves (17-12) in control.

Facing a busy week with three league games in seven days - including a game Monday against Valparaiso - UWM made liberal use of its reserves down the stretch. In fact, sophomore Charlie Swiggett wound up leading Milwaukee in scoring with a season-best 13 points while freshman Anthony Hill added nine points in the final eight minutes.

Bradley shot 53.7 percent for the game, including 60 percent from the field in the second half. Meanwhile, UWM shot 40 percent from the field and never truly recovered from an extended scorless stretch in the first half.

"We had another lull of about seven minutes where we didn't score," UWM head coach Rob Jeter said. "It's disturbing because I can't quite figure out why we continue to hit those lulls. Certainly some of it has to do with the teams we are playing."

Milwaukee built a 16-11 lead in the first eight minutes and still led 21-16 at the 8:45 mark after four-straight points from Anderson. But, UWM then scored just two field goals over the next seven minutes as the Braves built a 34-25 lead. A basket by Sam Singh with five seconds to play pushed Bradley's lead to 38-27 before a three-pointer by Ricky Franklin brought UWM back to within 38-30 at halftime.

Bradley led by 12 points early in the second half before UWM rallied, pulling within 46-43 on a Swiggett free throw with 14:15 remaining. But, the Braves struck back, with a pair of three-pointers by Crouch pushing the lead back to 56-45 with 12:25 left. From there, the Braves took control while extending the lead to 70-53.

UWM did cut the lead back to 11 on a pair of occasions but would never get any closer.

The Panthers return to action Monday night, opening their final week of Horizon League regular season play with a home game against Valparaiso. The contest begins at 8 p.m. and UWM can clinch no worse than fifth place with a victory.