MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee men's basketball team used a late 8-0 scoring run to grab a lead with two minutes to play, but could not pull out the victory in falling to Youngstown State, 73-69, Saturday evening at UWM Panther Arena.
 
The Panthers (12-18, 7-11  Horizon League) seemed to take momentum with that late charge, but the Penguins (17-14, 10-8 Horizon League) had the answer, scoring the final seven to dash MKE's hopes of a postseason home game when the Horizon League Tournament starts next week.
 
"Our guys are resilient. Our guys are fighters," head coach Pat Baldwin said. "That has how we have been all year, whether we have been up and lose the lead and try and come back, or we have been down. Our guys continue to fight and that is what I love about them. We are disappointed about this loss tonight, but we are excited about the opportunity to get into the tournament and start fresh."
 
DeAndre Abram led the way for the Panthers, finishing with his fourth double-double of the season on his "Senior Day". He finished with 18 points and 12 boards, with his rebound total including the 500^th of his collegiate career.
 
"We had foul trouble in the first half and that hurt us, because we had momentum and you could potentially build the lead based on how well we were playing early on," Baldwin said. "You fast-forward to the second half where it was back-and-forth; it was a dogfight. We just didn't make enough plays in order to finish this out."
 
Darius Roy added 16 points and three steals, while Josh Thomas joined them in double-figures with 12. Te'Jon Lucas was limited to just eight points due to early foul trouble that kept him on the bench for 16 minutes of the first half.
 
"That impacts us because he is a big part of what we do," Baldwin said. "When you don't have your leader on the floor, it changes how you go about things offensively; it changes how you look defensively. We turned the ball over in that stretch as well, which was crucial at that point of the game."
 
Darius Quisenberry paced the visitors with 24 points, which included 15 in the second half. His 3-pointer knotted the game at 53-53, part of an 11-4 YSU scoring run that gave it momentum at 58-55.
 
Milwaukee wasn't done there, responding to make it a new game at 64-64 on a Roy layup. C.J. Wilbourn then drew a big offensive foul on Quisenberry on one side and Roy followed with a 3 that made it 68-64 with two minutes left, capping that 8-0 spurt and forcing a Penguin timeout.
 
Milwaukee was unable to convert the rest of the way, committing a pair of turnovers while also missing a chance to tie the game late in the closing seconds.
 
The Panthers came out strong and built a quick lead courtesy of a strong defensive effort, using an 8-0 spark after Youngstown State scored the first bucket of the night. The lead grew to 13-5 on an Abram 3, with the defense holding its opponent to a 1-for-10 start from the floor.
 
It sat at 17-7 on a Thomas layup and went to its largest of the half at 19-8, all the while holding YSU to 15 percent shooting from the floor at that point. Lucas picked up two early fouls before heading back in, picking up his third at the 8:09 mark.
 
The Penguins used that as a spark, going 6-0 to draw closer at 19-14 before eventually getting all the way back to even at 30-30 with just under a minute to play.
 
MKE hit half of its shots (24-of-48) on the evening, with YSU turning it up in the second half to the tune of nearly 60 percent.
 
The postseason will have a familiar ring, as the Panthers will head to Ohio to play these same Penguins as the No. 8 seed in the first round of the Horizon League Tournament. Game time will be 6 p.m. CST Tuesday.