The Milwaukee Panthers lost two basketball games to Detroit Mercy last month.
Now as UWM goes into a do-or-die third meeting, brace for some familiar bad news: the Panthers will be without yet two more players for whatever remains of their 2025-26 season.
Guard Amar Augillard, who started 24 games, suffered a broken ankle in the Panthers’ senior day victory over Youngstown State on Feb. 25, and junior big man Tate Mackenzie has been advised to retire due to chronic knee problems, coach Bart Lundy said.
“Yeah, we started with six seniors that all could have been all-league type guys and we’re down to a healthy Aaron and three-quarters of a Faizon,” Lundy said March 2 in what has become a familiar gotta-laugh-or-you’ll-cry tone.
The challenge for the Panthers, however, remains the same.
Beat the Titans in the first round of the Horizon League tournament in a game set for 6 p.m. March 4 (ESPN+) at Calihan Hall, or the season is over for the aforementioned Aaron Franklin, Faizon Fields and a handful of underclassmen left from a team that tipped off four months and four leading scorers ago with league championship aspirations.
The Panthers (12-19, 8-12 Horizon) lost both regular-season meetings with the Titans (15-4, 12-8) in February.
In the first game, they dug a 13-point hole through the first half before falling 76-63 at the UWM Panther Arena. In the second game, UWM got out early but Detroit Mercy point guard Orlando Lovejoy scored 22 of his 24 points in the second half to lead comeback for a 91-86 victory in Detroit.
“We’ve got to be able to contain [Lovejoy] better,” Lundy said. “And the first game, we gave up 46 paint points. We did way better in that category the second game.
“So I think we’ve learned a little bit each time, and we’ll tweak our game plan, and our guys … we’ve gotten so much better as a team since we’ve had this group together for a little while now.
“The other thing is all these guys were going through these environments for the very first time. All the guys with experience pretty much are gone now. So, they’ve seen Detroit, and they know what it feels like, and they know what the arena’s like.”
Freshman Stevie Elam scored 22 points for the Panthers in the Feb. 20 loss in Detroit. With an average of 10.5 points a game, he is UWM’s top scorer after the loss of John Lovelace Jr. (broken leg after leading the Panthers in an exhibition win), Seth Hubbard (shoulder, 16.6 ppg through nine games), Augillard (12.6 ppg) and Danilo Jovanovich (shoulder, 12.4 over 17 games).
After Milwaukee beat Youngtown State in the regular-season finale, Lundy said his team could be “scary dangerous” in the league tournament.
Certainly the Panthers have been capable of putting together impressive stretches of games, but they’ve also run cold and given up points in bunches. Against any opponent, it wouldn’t take much of the latter to end their season.
“The reason I think we’re scary is we’ve gotten more stability at the point guard spot with Esyah Pippa-White and then Josh [Dixon] and Isaiah [Dorceus] coming off the bench and giving us pop off the bench and then we’ve got more guys making 3s than we’ve had in a long time,” Lundy said.
“Faizon has had some time to get the ankle healthy, and … every time he goes in the game, we’re positive on the stat sheet. Being able to get more minutes out of him and having him have this break to strengthen the ankle has been really huge.”
Every game after the regular season is an opportunity for a team to build for the following year.
In an era when NIL money and easy transfers shuffle the deck every season, though, it’s hard to foresee what any team – particularly a mid-major – might look like the following November.
Lundy is hopeful most of the key contributors will be back. If that’s the case, the parade through the training room this season may have been the more difficult challenge.
“The positives that have come out of this year is we’ve got guys that had zero Division I experience that now have at least a half a year under their belt where they became main guys,” Lundy said. “We took some lumps, but I think that group that will take the floor in the tournament, they really like playing together and they really like each other and they’ve gotten better together. … That sets you up for success down the road.
“And I don’t know that any of those guys get those opportunities if those seniors stay healthy.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM roster depleted but spirit strong for tournament game in Detroit
Reporting by Dave Kallmann, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
