Feb. 8, 2014

Box Score |  Photo Gallery 

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Jordan Aaron scored 30 points and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee led by as many as 18 points in the second half en route to a 73-63 win over first-place Green Bay Saturday afternoon at the Resch Center.

The Panthers (16-9, 6-5 Horizon) controlled the second half, as Aaron scored 23 of his points after halftime while Milwaukee shot 60 percent from the field.

Milwaukee took command of the game with a 24-7 run midway through the second 20 minutes. Aaron was the leader of the burst, scoring 10-straight by himself at one point and winding up with 15 of Milwaukee's 24 points during the run.

"My teammates did a great job of getting me open and getting me the ball, and then I was able to make a few tough shots," Aaron said. "I just have to take my hat off to my teammates. They did a great job out there. Our bigs rebounded, as guards we ran the offense and we played with one another. It was a great team effort."

"We've really been on Jordan about staying aggressive. He has to be an aggressive scorer for us," Milwaukee head coach Rob Jeter said. "Moving from the point guard to the two-guard position, it took him some time to really understand that it's more catch and shoot and less dribbling. What I'm really impressed by is it's coming with less dribbling. For him to make those adjustments and do those things for the team, I'm really proud of him."

The Panthers' performance quieted a spirited crowd of 6,071 and pushed Green Bay (19-5, 9-2) back to the pack atop the league standings. It also very much kept alive Milwaukee's hopes of claiming a top-three finish in the regular season.

"We know it's a rivalry game and they're the best team in our league right now by their record," Aaron said. "Coming in here I just wanted to be aggressive. My teammates knew how good they were and we wanted this win more than anything."

As has been the case in many of its wins, Milwaukee received a wide variety of contributions. Steve McWhorter added 10 points and Kyle Kelm nine, while Malcolm Moore came off the bench to contribute nine points, six rebounds and three impressive blocks. Plus, Thierno Niang and Mitch Roelke combined for 14 key minutes to help Milwaukee overcome some foul trouble.

"I thought our bench was phenomenal," Jeter said. "I just liked the way the guys handled it. It didn't matter who was on the court tonight. We had some starters sitting down (because of fouls). We had Austin sitting down and it didn't matter. He was just happy that who was in the game was performing well."

Milwaukee did have to recover from a slow start in the first 20 minutes, but did so in style with a 13-0 run. Green Bay led 16-8 after a Lamin Fulton three, but back-to-back threes from McWhorter and Aaron stemmed the tide. The Panthers eventually led 21-16 on a layin by Moore and 24-19 on a Matt Tiby three-point play. But Green Bay did have the final answer of the half, with an Alec Brown three-pointer giving the Phoenix a 29-28 lead at the break.

The Panthers then scored the first five points of the second half and would never give the lead back. The run that put the game away actually started with a three-pointer from Tiby before Aaron took over. It was his two free throws with 4:03 remaining that pushed the lead to 63-45 and the Panthers were never seriously threatened after that.

Now Milwaukee has a week to prepare for next Saturday's game with Valparaiso that could launch Milwaukee even further up the league standings.

"I thought it was the Green Bay game earlier this season that put us into a position where we started to second-guess ourselves," Jeter said. "Hopefully this game here will put us in a position where we'll feel a little better about ourselves."