INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – In a closely-contested game that featured nine ties and 10 lead changes, the Milwaukee men's basketball team found itself tied, 70-70, with under three minutes to play, but could not pull out the victory in falling, 83-76, to Oakland in the title game of the 2024 Barbasol Horizon League Championship.
The Panthers (20-15) and Golden Grizzlies (23-11) were locked in an entertaining contest for the fans all night, seeing both teams within three points of each other for over 31 minutes of the evening Tuesday at Indiana Farmers Coliseum.
"We battled – I thought it was a great college basketball game," head coach
Bart Lundy said. "We had a three-point lead with five minutes to go and I will give Oakland credit. They made the plays down the stretch; we had no answer for (Trey) Townsend. We went into it thinking if we took away the 3's, played one-on-one down low, that it would be tough for them to score enough two's to beat us – but he proved that wrong."
Tied at 70-all, Oakland scored the next four points to take control and then made 11-of-12 free throws over the final 70 seconds to claim its first-ever Horizon League title as members of the conference.
"They are a really tough one-day prep," Lundy said. "Coach Kampe deserves a ton of credit. He's put that team together – those guys have been there for a long time and he added the right pieces in my opinion to be an excellent team. He does a great job. Congratulations to Oakland."
The MKE offense was led by
Erik Pratt, who scored 16 points and added four rebounds and four assists.
Kentrell Pullian followed his with 15 points while adding four assists.
BJ Freeman chipped in 14 points and
Langston Wilson had 10 points and six boards to round out the players in double-figures.
"For us, we won 20 games again for the second year in a row," Lundy said. "It's the first time our program has done that since 2006. We are making progress but it's not where we want to be. We really wanted the city of Milwaukee to experience the NCAA Tournament. The city really is desperate for it. We are the city's school and we take a lot of pride in that. But we will get there. You have a lot of breakthroughs as you're building. We broke through to the final four last year and got to the championship game this year. Everything changes when you get a breakthrough and we will keep fighting for that."
Trey Townsend, the 2024 Horizon League Player of the Year, led the charge with a career-high 38 points to help him on his way to Tournament MVP honors, adding a double-double with 11 rebounds. He went 12-of-22 from the floor and 14-of-18 from the line and was the main reason the Grizz were able to cut down the nets at the end of the night and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011.
Down just four at the break and facing the biggest deficit of the night at 49-42 with 15:45 to play, Milwaukee fought back retake the lead at 52-51 on a fastbreak layup by Pullian and the were back ahead by two at 62-60 after Wilson scored six consecutive points – four on slam dunks.
Townsend's three-point play put the Grizzlies back ahead, 66-64, and the final deadlock came at 70-70 with 2:53 to play when Freeman rattled in a three from the corner. Milwaukee played the foul game after falling behind, but just one miss on a dozen OU attempts sealed their fate.
Both teams finished the contest at just under 44 percent from the floor, with many of the other stats close to even as well (44-36 MKE points in paint/41-37 MKE rebounds/8-7 OU turnovers/18-17 MKE second-chance).
Freeman did see his streak of scoring 20-plus points end at 10 to tie the school record. On that note, at 21.4 ppg overall, Freeman now leads the Horizon League and is the first Panther to average over 20 points a game since Dylan Page exactly 30 years ago. Page went for 20.9 ppg in 2003-04, which is also the last time the Panthers had the league's leading scorer.
Freeman finished with 103 points in the Horizon League postseason (4 games), establishing a new Horizon League record in the event. The former mark of 93 was set by Byron Larkin of Xavier way back in 1987.
At 20-14, the victory Monday against Northern Kentucky gave the Panthers the 12th 20-win season in program history. It also marked back-to-back for
Bart Lundy after posting a 22-12 ledger a year ago. That gives Milwaukee back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 2005-06 (22-9) and 2004-05 (26-6) - which was the tail end of four consecutive years hitting the mark. Lundy is the first MKE coach to win 20+ in back-to-back years since Bruce Pearl in 2003-04 (20-11) and 2004-05 (26-6).
Barbasol #HLMBB Championship All-Tournament Team
Trey Townsend, Oakland (Valeo MVP)
Jack Gohlke, Oakland
Faizon Fields, Milwaukee
BJ Freeman, Milwaukee
Trey Robinson, Northern Kentucky
