The following story is from the Spring 2022 edition of the "Roar Report" that came out last week. It is authored by Gary D'Amato, the former longtime sportswriter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who joined the staff as the feature writer for the Roar Report in the Fall of 2018.

A NEW ERA BEGINS

Bart Lundy had his Queens University of Charlotte basketball team in the middle of yet another post-season run in March – under Lundy, the Royals had made a habit of chasing titles – and the last thing on his mind was the head coach opening at a school 850 miles away.

Then he took a call from Amanda Braun, the Milwaukee director of athletics. She talked and he listened. And the more she talked, and the more he listened, the more attractive the job sounded.

"I was really not initially (interested), but OK, I'll talk to them," Lundy said. "But Amanda was so sharp and so on top of things and I was so impressed with what she already knew about me and how she was selling the program, it kind of got me more and more roped in. Give her a lot of credit for piquing my interest and making me see this really is kind of a sleeping giant."

It wasn't long before the 50-year-old Lundy found himself accepting the job, fired up to take the helm of a program with so much potential and determined to get the "sleeping giant" back on its feet.

Milwaukee hasn't had a winning season since the 2015-16 team went 20-13 in Rob Jeter's final year. That was six years and three coaches ago. LaVall Jordan went 11-24 in his only season before leaving for Butler and Pat Baldwin went 57-92 over five seasons before being let go on March 2, one day after the Panthers suffered an 11-point home loss in the first round of the Horizon League tournament.

But if anyone is up for the job, it's Lundy, whose resume is beyond impressive. In 20 years as a head coach at the Division I and II levels, he's had just two losing seasons and has won 25 or more games nine times.

"We want our program to be led by an experienced head coach who is a proven winner, recruits high-level student-athletes of good character and is highly regarded by his peers," Braun said in introducing Lundy as the 23rd head coach in program history and eighth since the Panthers moved to Division I in 1990. "Bart Lundy exemplifies all of these qualities and more."

Does he ever. What Queens accomplished over the last nine years under Lundy boggles the mind. He compiled a 222-61 record (.784), made seven consecutive trips to the NCAA Division II tournament and won 30 or more games four times. His teams spent 65 consecutive weeks ranked in the coaches' poll – 1,498 days from November 2015 to December 2019.

Queens' run of three consecutive seasons of 30-plus victories from 2016 to 2019 – the Royals went 93-13 over that span – was matched only by Gonzaga across all NCAA levels.

This past season, Queens posted a 30-4 record and advanced to the Southeast Regional Championship game before suffering a last-second, 77-76 loss to top-ranked Augusta, which ended the Royals' 17-game winning streak.

Lundy also went 115-41 in his first stint at Queens (1998 to 2003) before leaving for High Point, where he compiled a 96-87 record over six seasons. Just 31 at the time of his hiring, he was the second-youngest Division I head coach in the country.

From 2009 to 2012, Lundy served as director of basketball operations at Marquette under then-coach Buzz Williams. He then spent the 2012-'13 season as an assistant at North Texas before returning to Queens.
It's an outstanding resume, to be sure, filled with gaudy numbers that make your head spin. But the question is, can Lundy achieve something close to that success at UWM?

"I talked to a lot of people and everybody pretty much says the same thing, that it's a job in the Horizon League that you can win, and you can win pretty quickly," he said. "It's a winnable league. Amanda has done an amazing job putting the pieces in place with the new practice facility (under construction and expected to be completed this fall) and the naming rights with Panther Arena.

"I don't think there's a lot of obstacles to winning."

At Queens, Lundy's teams were known for getting up and down the court, defending all 94 feet and taking care of the ball. This past season the Royals scored 80 or more points in 23 of 34 games and topped 100 six times. He'll bring that style of play to Milwaukee.

"Everybody in the world says we play fast," he said. "We'll play as fast as we need to play. But we will run offensively on makes and misses, so it will be an up-tempo, higher possession brand of basketball. And then defensively, they're going to see mostly man to man. And we're going to pick up full court.

"What I like to tell our guys is when the other team gets the ball, we want them to feel like they're playing uphill. And then when we get the ball, the court tilts and we're playing downhill. If I had to simplify it, that's kind of what (Panthers fans) will see."

To that end, Lundy stresses conditioning in practice, diligence in the weight room and proper nutrition. He learned from his uncle, longtime College of Charleston soccer coach Ralph Lundy, that the minimum expectation for a coach in any sport is that his or her players are fit. There is no excuse for being out-worked by the opponent.

A well-conditioned, hard-nosed basketball team can build margins in turnovers and rebounding, which is exactly what the Royals did under Lundy. Last season, they outrebounded opponents by an average of 8.7 per game and committed 109 fewer turnovers. They also shot 47 percent while holding their opponents to 42 percent.

"Basketball is a game of numbers," he said, "and your numbers have to be better than the other guys' numbers."

Lundy has talked with the Panthers' players and hopes many, if not most of them, return for the 2022-'23 season.

"My conversations with them, they're eager to get at it," he said. "I don't want to come in and just be the guy that runs everybody off, you know? I know some guys are in the portal and that is what it is, and we'll need to recruit some guys. I think there's enough open spots to add some important pieces. I want to honor Coach Baldwin. Whatever happened, he's a good human being and treated the kids right. That part, I definitely want to continue."

When Lundy hits the recruiting trail, he looks for three things in prospective players – a history of winning, toughness and good shooters who can take and make three-pointers.

"I learned a long time ago that you can win basketball games with talented players, but if you want to win championships and you want to win at the highest levels, you've got to have a lot of character with those kids," he said. "We'll obviously look at the physical attributes, but I really like kids who come from winning programs. If they've won in the past, it kind of makes them hungry for winning in the future and shows them the sacrifice it takes to win. At Queens this year, I think we had eight guys on our roster that won state championships.

"And then it's toughness. We want guys that are tough and hard-nosed. If you build a culture on work and being kind of a gritty team, then you've got to recruit players that fit that mold. Then we want guys that are really good defensively – we're going to guard full court – and they've got to be able to shoot. It's not always an easy combination to find, but that's what we'll be looking for."

Lundy has done an impressive job developing players, with 24 former Queens players having played professionally over the last nine seasons, highlighted by four NBA G-League players as well as Todd Withers, who signed a contract with the Detroit Pistons following the 2019 NBA Summer League.

In addition to success on the court, Lundy has graduated 90 percent of his student-athletes who finished their eligibility.

"He cares deeply about his teams and is truly concerned with the welfare of his student-athletes," Braun said.

To be sure, there are challenges ahead for Lundy. Not only must he turn around a program that has had just six winning seasons since 2005 and last played in the NCAA tournament in 2014, but he'll have to find a way to engage a largely apathetic student body.

"There's a lot of work to be done in that area, but there's so much potential, too," he said. "So much potential. I'm going to try to bring energy. I don't know that that's my absolute strongest suit. I'm a ball coach, I'd like to think, but I've learned to embarrass myself as much as possible to get people interested."

Winning will take care of a lot of that. Lundy knows Milwaukee is a basketball-centric city and he saw first-hand how raucous the Panther Arena can be when he was at Marquette and the Golden Eagles played UWM at what was then called the U.S. Cellular Arena.

"It was rocking," he said. "It was so loud. It was awesome. Can't wait to get it back to that point. … The exciting thing for me is that I know if we put a good product out there and we do right by the city, they will come out and support us."

It won't be easy, and it might not happen quickly. But Lundy exudes the kind of confidence that makes you believe in him.

"I won't put a number of games that we'll win or not win but we're going to do it right," he said. "We're going to work and we're going to put a good product on the court. Those kids are going to play hard and play together, and we're going to have a good spirit about us."

That's a very good place to start.