Jan. 3, 2013

Box Score

DETROIT, Mich. - Five players scored in double figures and Detroit broke open a close game midway through the second half en route to a 74-59 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Thursday night at Calihan Hall.

The defending league tournament champion Titans (9-5), who raised their championship banner before the game, used a 21-4 run to break a 40-all tie and take over the contest.

Paris Gulley scored 22 points to lead Milwaukee (4-11), which led by as many as six points in the first half and 37-36 after a J.J. Panoske three-pointer with 16:45 remaining.

But Detroit answered from there and wound up shooting 50 percent in the second half while limiting Milwaukee to a 30.6 percent clip.

James Haarsma added 11 points and Panoske eight points and six rebounds for UWM.

Ray McCallum and Jason Calliste had 13 points for Detroit, which also got 12 points apiece from Doug Anderson and Evan Bruinsma and 10 points from Nick Minnerath.

The Titans have now won 16 in a row at home.

"We just hit one of those lulls where we couldn't score and then on the other end we just didn't get enough stops," Milwaukee head coach Rob Jeter said. "We had some layups we missed that I thought would have kept us ahead or kept us right there, and that forced us to take some longer shots late in the shot clock which led to some runouts."

Detroit did take advantage of those missed layups with transition baskets, collecting 18 fast-break points while limiting the Milwaukee offense.

"The kids are working hard to get to positions but then we just come up a little short. It's disheartening, and then it leads to some runouts on the other end," Jeter said. "You're taking a two-point play and turning it into a four-point swing, with a missed layup and then points on the other end. It really wears on you, and that's what happened in the second half to us."

The Panthers didn't have much to complain about after the first 20 minutes. The Panthers led 9-6 on a layup by Jordan Aaron five minutes in and extended the lead to 19-13 on back-to-back three by Gulley near the midway point of the half.

Detroit responded, scoring 15 of the next 18 points to build a 28-22 advantage, but it was Milwaukee that made the final surge of the half. Another three-pointer by Gulley pushed the Panthers ahead 29-28 and a layup by Haarsma at the buzzer gave Milwaukee a 31-30 lead at the break.

UWM still led 37-36 after the three-pointer by Panoske and it was 40-all after another Gulley three. But McCallum responded with a three-pointer of his own to give the Titans the lead for good and Detroit steadily pulled away in holding Milwaukee to just four points over the next eight-plus minutes.

"It was part of our game plan to just make the next pass," Jeter said. "When we did that in the first 20 minutes, we got good opportunities. We had some of those same opportunities in the second half and they didn't go in. But I really think if we'd have made a few layups in there, that would have really kept things close and given us a chance."

Milwaukee wraps up his weekend road swing Saturday at Wright State.