MILWAUKEE – Down 11 points with under eight minutes to play, the Milwaukee men's basketball team put together a furious rally that came up just short in the closing seconds, falling by a final score of 76-72 to St. Thomas Wednesday afternoon at UWM Panther Arena.
The Panthers (2-3) shot close to 50 percent on the day and outrebounded the Tommies (5-2) by a significant margin, but were unable to convert a final opportunity to send the game to overtime on their last possession of the afternoon.
"I never came into this thinking this would be easy," head coach
Bart Lundy said. "We just have to keep getting better. We will grow, we just need to practice and need to play games. We can't put ourselves in that situation, we shouldn't have been behind."
Ahmad Rand led the way with one of the greatest single-game shooting performances in school history, finishing the contest with 18 points on a perfect 9-for-9 shooting from the field. His nine makes mark the most made field goals without a miss in program history. Rand added a team-best eight rebounds and recorded a season-high four blocks.
Justin Thomas added a season-high 14 points off the bench, chipping in four rebounds and a pair of blocks.
Angelo Stuart finished with 12 points, sinking 4-of-6 from deep, while
BJ Freeman also added a double-figure scoring output with 11 as the team finished over 50 percent (9-of-17) from deep as well.
Brooks Allen led the Tommies with a game-high 20 points.
A back-and-forth game from the start, a 6-0 spurt out of intermission gave St. Thomas the opening it was looking for. The MKE offense had none of it, however, with Thomas hitting a triple to stop the run at 41-36, followed by a Stuart swish from deep a few possessions later to draw Milwaukee within a possession at 43-40.
"I didn't think we came out with the energy that we needed," Lundy said of the start of the game. "For whatever reason, we struggled to get our matchups and we struggled to get into our full-court man [defense]. I didn't think we really got into it until the second half when we already kind of in a hole. But we just have to get better offensively."
The game swung quickly after that – six in a row pushed the visitors ahead at 49-40. But another three from Thomas, a thunderous dunk from Rand and a layup by Freeman made the deficit just two points at 49-47 with 11:14 to play.
The Tommies kept hitting really tough shots, with a well-defended step-back three from Riley Miller forcing a Lundy timeout with 7:27 left and the scoreboard reading 64-53.
But here came the Panthers after that. Another made 3 from Stuart with 70 seconds left made it a one-possession game and then MKE was right there after Thomas converted an and-1 to make it 74-72.
With the shot clock winding down, Rand blocked the STU layup and Milwaukee was off and running, only to see an offensive foul called in transition take away the opportunity to tie or take the lead.
"We have to play better and not be in that situation," Lundy said. "But like we do … we will mourn this until midnight, pack it away, and get better tomorrow."
The Panthers shot 47.5 percent (29-of-61) on the day.
Up next, it will be a busy holiday weekend for the team, hosting the "Cream City Classic" Nov. 26-28 at the Klotsche Center. Game one is Saturday against UC Davis, set for a 4 p.m. tipoff.
