If “survive and advance” is the mantra of March Madness, “regroup and recruit” might well be the new rallying cry for the start of the offseason for college basketball coaches.
Take UW-Milwaukee’s Bart Lundy, for instance.
On the heels of his Panthers’ disappointing 12-20 finish, caused mostly by an avalanche of season-ending injuries suffered by key players, much of the team’s roster quickly entered the transfer portal April 7 with an eye on larger Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) payouts, increased roles in new environments, or both.
Five of UWM’s six leading scorers with eligibility remaining and six of nine players who enjoyed any sort of regular role were expected to be on the move. That’s an unsettling amount of turnover to be sure, but also nothing out of the ordinary in today’s money-driven, anything-goes landscape.
Which meant, with the program torn down to the studs, Lundy and his staff needed to set forth with rebuilding.
“Really, the money and the agents, I mean, it was just like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Lundy said recently. “But I think having the season that we did with all the injuries and only winning 12 games, that was very motivating for me. I didn’t enjoy it. It’s not all about winning, but I don’t want this program to take a step back.
“And so we rolled up our sleeves and got very organized.”
So much so that for roughly a month the UWM program was housed not in the office in the Pavilion on campus but in the living room of Lundy’s house, where the coach set up a veritable war room with a large whiteboard on the mantel along with computers, calendars, tables and chairs where he and his assistants got to work.
Even athletic director Amanda Braun made regular visits to keep herself updated on the situation.
“The staff would usually come over once a day and we’d get [situated],” Lundy said. “I was making calls, we were doing visits. It wasn’t spring workouts. We were monitoring the guys coming back, but there were so few and we had to build a team. We knew what our criteria was, who we were looking for, what we wanted. The staff knew, ‘You’re looking at this portion of the portal, you’re looking at this portion.’
“Everybody was on point and we just ground it out until we made it happen.”
Return of Danilo Jovanovich, Chandler Jackson huge for UWM
There were high moments and low moments during the process, to be sure.
“Challenging and frustrating,” is how Lundy characterized it. “It was like riding a wave every day. The emotions of guys staying, guys leaving, recruits are in, recruits are out. A lot of ups and downs on a daily basis.
“The portal makes it happen so fast.”
After the portal closed April 21 and with the dust now settled, UWM once again has a nearly complete roster – one scholarship remains that Lundy is holding onto for now. On paper the roster should again rank right up there with the best in the Horizon League in terms of physical talent and overall balance.
“I don’t think it could have come together in a better way if I had written it up,” Lundy said. “Who we wanted to stay, who we wanted to recruit – I don’t know that we would have written it any better than how it happened.
“We’ve got to get them here in the summer and see how they all mesh together. But we made it a priority to get regional kids to come back, and to recruit those guys. We wanted high-character guys. We wanted positional size, a little more skill, and we were able to accomplish it.
“And, we had some things break our way.”
Moving on are Seth Hubbard (unsigned), Stevie Elam (Miami of Ohio), Josh Dixon (Georgia Southern), Sekou Konneh (San Diego) and Esyah Pippa-White (unsigned). Amar Augillard, Faizon Fields and Aaron Franklin have exhausted their eligibility, while Tate Mackenzie isn’t returning due to injury concerns.
Those returning are third-leading scorer Danilo Jovanovich, fifth-leading scorer Chandler Jackson, leading assist man Isaiah Dorceus and John Lovelace Jr., as well as forward Simeon Murchison and guard Austin Villarreal.
Jovanovich, the former Whitnall High School standout, coming back after initially entering the portal is huge considering his size, experience and skill set. And the 6-foot-7, 225-pound Jackson was a revelation in the second half last season after UWM had been decimated by injuries.
A junior college transfer, Jackson was contemplating redshirting before eventually being moved into the rotation in late November. By mid-January he was playing meaningful minutes, and over the final 10 games he averaged 15.2 points on 55.2% shooting and 4.7 rebounds while averaging more than a 3-pointer a game.
“For sure he was our best player,” Lundy said of Jackson’s play down the stretch. “He could be an all-league type of player, he really could be.”
The 6-foot Dorceus was expected to be a contributor at point guard, but aside from his assist total he struggled to make much of an impact. The junior college transfer averaged just 5.5 points on 36.5% shooting (he did hit 25 3-pointers, fourth-most on the team) while playing the second-most minutes for the Panthers.
Lundy revealed, however, that Dorceus played the entire season with a torn labrum in his shoulder, an injury that also led to season-ending surgeries for Hubbard and Jovanovich but one that Dorceus postponed until the offseason.
“It was torn in the back and also torn in the front, so I give him a lot of credit for playing,” Lundy said. “He just couldn’t move his shoulder. I really think he’ll be way, way better.”
One major wild card will be senior forward Lovelace, whose season was ended before it even began last year by a devastating leg fracture. The former Brown Deer High School star has been steadily progressing toward a return to the court after multiple surgeries to stabilize and correct the damage.
“They think he’s on track, and he’s feeling good about it,” Lundy said. “It’s mentally taxing for him right now, because he wants to be able to do the things that he did before, and it’s like learning to walk again, right? So, I feel for him. But we’re hanging with him, and he’s hanging with us, and everyone’s hoping for the best.”
UWM signs some familiar newcomers
Lundy’s group of newcomers will be nine in total with four Division I transfers in Aaron Womack, Tre Norman, Al Amadou and Jake Hansen, one junior college transfer in Nate Malosa and four high school signees in Amare Hereford, Ben Akoro, SJ Young and Braylon Walker.
Womack is a former Whitefish Bay Dominican High School star; Norman and Amadou both played at Marquette University; and Hansen arrives from Oklahoma via Wauwatosa West, where he helped lead the Trojans to the WIAA Division 2 state title in the 2024-25 season.
“Tre, Al – these guys I’m sure are hungry to prove they can play,” Lundy said. “These are just good dudes. [Hansen] is an unbelievably hard worker. He can really shoot. He wants to be here, and he’s back home again.”
Malosa, meanwhile, is a 6-10, 235-pound forward from Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tennessee, who was the leading shot blocker in the NJCAA last year with 3.1 per game to go with averages of 9.1 points and 8.5 rebounds.
“We could look back on this and he’s the steal of the group,” Lundy said. “He had some schools interested and an agent we knew, and it kind of popped up. He’s really developed, shooting 3s, dunking balls and in two days we had him on campus because his recruitment was really heating up.”
Akoro and Young are what remains of what was a five-player recruiting class that Lundy had landed last November, while Walker is a 6-4 guard from Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Illinois, who averaged 14.9 points, 5.9 assists, 3.4 steals and a team-best 5.9 rebounds as a senior.
“Braylon is a two-way player who not only can score the basketball but also is a tremendous defender,” Lundy said.
If one includes Norman and Amadou for their time at Marquette, nine players on the 2026-27 roster will have ties to Milwaukee or southeastern Wisconsin (Beloit Memorial’s Hereford).
“For me, the story is the Wisconsin guys,” Lundy said. ” Since I’ve gotten here, people wanted this team to reflect the state and region. I don’t think it could reflect it much better. I do think last year we had more guys that, maybe you could look on paper and they had done it at this level.
“So, I do look at our roster and go, ‘OK, there’s so much potential here, but not a lot of of guys who have proven that they can do it at this level. That’s why getting Chandler and [Jovanovich] back is huge. Especially [Jovanovich], because you know that he’s done it.”
Lundy’s staff, which already includes Milwaukee Vincent product Jose Winston and Oak Creek alum Ben Walker, is expected to add even more local flavor in the coming weeks with former Waukesha South star and ex-Wisconsin Badgers player Julian Swartz in line to join as an assistant.
Swartz’s previous Division I coaching experience includes stops at Marquette, Indiana, Memphis and Georgia Tech. He spent last season as a special assistant to Lundy.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bart Lundy, staff embraced turmoil, rebuilt UW-Milwaukee’s roster in a month
Reporting by Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
