MILWAUKEE - Brock Stull scored a game-high 18 points and made a key three-pointer late in the contest to help the Milwaukee men's basketball team record a well-deserved 68-58 victory over Northern Kentucky Thursday night at the UWM Panther Arena.
 
"That was a hard-fought win for us. It's good," Milwaukee head coach LaVall Jordan said. "We needed one for the soul and the message to the guys was simply that they deserved it because of the way we practiced all week. We came back from a tough loss last week. I thought our focus, our attention to detail, our spirit, was really good."
 
The Panthers (5-12, 1-3 Horizon League) righted the ship against the Norse (12-7, 3-3 Horizon League) by slowly pulling away in the second half. And when the visitors appeared to have one last push left, Stull's off-balance three-pointer with the shot clock expiring put UWM back in front by 10 points with three minutes remaining to put the game away.
 
"Guys were locked into the scout and did a great job executing on both ends of the floor," Jordan said. "When you do those things, you deserve the result. And I thought we went and fought for it and we deserved to win it. They (NKU) are a good team. They do a great job, they have good players. We were thankful to get the win."
 
Stull went 7-of-10 from the floor, adding seven rebounds and three assists. Cody Wichmann joined him in double-figures with 15, contributing four rebounds, three steals and two assists.
 
Jeremiah Bell came off the bench to add 11 points, while Brett Prahl was big with nine points and seven boards.
 
"We tried to shrink the game in their minds and talk about 4-minute battles," Jordan said. "Get to the next media (timeout), win this four minutes and not worry about the rest. We did a good job of staying in the moment."
 
Four players netted double-figures for the Norse, led by Lavonne Holland with 17. Milwaukee held Drew McDonald – the reigning Horizon League Player of the Week who had posted double-doubles in each of his last four games – in relative check, finishing with 14 points and three rebounds, while forcing him into four turnovers and no assists.
 
Milwaukee sank 50 percent (13-of-26) of its shots in the second half and did what only one other team has done all season – out-rebound NKU. The Norse came into the game 28^th in the nation at over 40 boards per game, having lost the rebound battle just one other time in 18 outings. UWM earned the 33-29 edge tonight, led by seven apiece from Stull and Prahl.
 
The Panthers grabbed the first lead of the second half on its first shot, with Stull making it 32-30 on the first possession. It was 37-37 after that and a Wichmann three with the defense in his face gave UWM the 44-41 advantage.
 
From that point on (12:35 left), the Panthers would not trail, using seven in a row to go ahead 48-41 before eventually leading by as many as 10 at 59-48 on a layup by August Haas with just over five minutes remaining.
 
The Panthers actually trailed for all but 12 seconds of the first half, but went into the locker room all tied at 30-30 after the defense held the Norse to just one made field goal in its last eight attempts of the period.
 
Down 7-2 out of the gates, UWM ripped off seven in a row to lead 9-7. NKU punched back, scoring eight unanswered at 15-9. Back and forth for quite a while from there, a three from the corner by Bell had the Panthers back within one at 26-25 at the 4:21 mark.
 
Wichmann's trifecta then knotted the contest up 28-all and Bell again with a layup to force the third tie with under a minute to play.
 
For the night, Milwaukee ended at 44.6 percent (25-of-56) from the field, making eight 3's and 10-of-13 from the free throw line. NKU finished at 41.7 percent (20-of-48), with UWM turning 11 offensive rebounds into a 19-9 edge in second-chance points.
 
Up next, Milwaukee welcomes Wright State to UWM Panther Arena Saturday, set for a 2 p.m. start.