MILWAUKEE – For the first time in over 600 days, the Milwaukee men's basketball team was able to play a regular-season contest in front of fans at UWM Panther Arena. The team gave the crowd a huge comeback effort Saturday night in front of a big Homecoming atmosphere, but came up just short in a 77-71 loss to Eastern Kentucky in the home opener.
"It was a tale of two halves and we didn't play very well in the first half," head coach
Pat Baldwin said. "We turned the ball over too much and gave them momentum. We gave them the lead and put ourselves in a huge deficit."
The Panthers (1-1) fell behind by as many as 26 to the Colonels (3-0) but trimmed the margin to under double-figures with two-plus minutes remaining in regulation. From there they ran out of time, despite holding EKU without a field goal over the final 4:28.
"In the second half, our guys really fought hard to get back into the game," Baldwin said. "If we take care of the ball like we did in the second half, I think it's a different ball game. We have a really good team and need to play like that team that showed up in the second half."
Josh Thomas paced MKE with 23 points and added six rebounds, coming on one of the best single-game shooting performances in school history. At 10-of-12 from the field, his .833 shooting percentage ties for the third-best single-game effort in program history.
Patrick Baldwin Jr. recorded his second straight double-double to open his collegiate career, finishing with 19 points and 11 rebounds. PBJ added four assists, a steal, and a block.
DeAndre Gholston gave Milwaukee a pair of 20-point scorers, contributing 22 points to go along with eight boards.
Devontae Blanton led a balanced EKU attack with 12 points, one of four players to finish in double-figures.
Playing without two starters from the season opener at North Dakota earlier this week, Milwaukee fell behind in the first half when it was plagued by miscues. The Colonels kept up the pressure and kept hitting three's, using an 8-0 run to grab a lead at 14-10 and building from there. Seven MKE turnovers in the opening 12 minutes hurt and nine straight from EKU made it 31-21.
The hole got larger as the second half started, reaching 20 at 53-33 before hitting a high-water mark of 26 at 63-37 with 14:57 to play.
From there it was all Milwaukee for a stretch, scoring 11 in a row at one point, with a 16-3 scoring run capped by a Thomas layup on a fastbreak forcing a timeout from the visitors with the score at 66-53.
Milwaukee had the chance to cut to nine on a few possessions, and it was 10 on a pretty cut to the hoop and finish by Baldwin Jr. at 73-63. The defense kept it up and a 6-0 spurt, capped by a Gholston layup, brought it to 75-69 with 38 seconds left. After EKU split a pair from the line, Gholston got another hoop to trim the deficit to 76-71 but that was as close as it would get before time ran out on the comeback effort, cheered on by a crowd of 4,318.
Milwaukee ended the evening at 44.6 percent (29-of-65) from the floor, but only got to the line nine times (making 8) and committing 17 turnovers. Eastern Kentucky turned that into a 17-11 advantage in points off turnovers and finished at 38.8 percent (26-of-67) from the field.
Up next, the Panthers are back on the road, starting a trip south by taking on Florida Nov. 18. Game time is set for 5 p.m. against the Gators.
