MILWAUKEE - DeAndre Abram led the way with 25 points and 11 rebounds and the Milwaukee men's basketball team never trailed in claiming an 87-64 victory over Wisconsin Lutheran Sunday evening at the Klotsche Center.
 
The Panthers (4-8) led the Warriors (5-4) by eight points at the break and then used a 15-2 scoring run just after halftime to take control. The lead would grow to as much as 23 and would never fall below 16 points the rest of the contest.
 
"The thing that we are talking about is executing for 40 straight minutes, which is hard to do," head coach Pat Baldwin said. "But I think that we are starting to get into a little bit of a groove, we are understanding our rotations."
 
Abram's double-double was his second in a row and fifth of the season, scoring a season-high 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting, which included 4-of-9 makes from long range. He added four assists, a pair of blocks and a steal to his stat line.
 
"I want to take advantage of him on both sides of the floor," Baldwin said. "We are trying to use him even more on the offensive end and the last couple of games, he has really put it together."
 
Vance Johnson put together another solid outing, finishing with 17 points in just 23 minutes, adding four rebounds and an 8-for-8 showing from the free throw line.
 
Jake Wright had 11 (three 3's) and Bryce Barnes had 10 to round out the MKE players in double-figures. Bobby Arthur Williams collected 10 rebounds.
 
"For us, we are going into finals (in the classroom) and this was a good game for us to try and play well and then try and get ready for a really big game coming up on Saturday," Baldwin said.
 
Mack Knueppel paced the Warriors with 13 points.
 
Milwaukee shot 50.8 percent (31-of-61) and hit a season-high 14 three-pointers (14-of-33). The defense held WLC to under 40 percent overall and had a 20-to-8 assist-to-turnover ratio.
 
The Panthers raced out to a 10-0 advantage and led by as many as 13 early (18-5). The Warriors would stick around, however, cutting the deficit to as little as five before MKE would pull away a bit, getting the lead back to 13 on a Roy three 1:54 before intermission.
 
The second-half scoring run provided the difference, turning a 43-36 advantage into a 58-38 lead in a span of four minutes on the clock. Abram hit a three and also converted a three-point play with a tough layup in the span. Wright buried a triple, Johnson's free throws at the 15:08 mark pushed the margin to 20 at 58-38 and MKE would never be threatened.
 
Up next, the Panthers have one more non-conference contest on the schedule before Horizon League play opens, heading to play Western Michigan Dec. 22. That game will tip off at 2 p.m. CST.