'This is my city': First-place UWM Panthers make another statement with their play, then their words
BJ Freeman finished the acrobatic shot through traffic and skipped back down to the other end of the court. He assumed his stance on defense, prepared to do what was needed to maintain the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s 11-point lead he had helped build.
Northern Kentucky called timeout instead. Freeman stood up straight and let his thoughts be heard, his emotions known
“This is my city!” he shouted.
BOX SCORE: UW-Milwaukee 80, Northern Kentucky 75
Freeman is not from Milwaukee. He’s a native of Selma, North Carolina, and in his first season at UWM, coming to the school following a year at Dodge City Community College in Kansas. Freeman had never been to Milwaukee before joining the team.
But he, like the rest of the Panthers, has bought into head coach Bart Lundy’s program, into what it takes to turn a program around, into the name on the front of the jersey.
After his first exclamation on the floor, Freeman paused and stared into the crowd of 1,598. Then, he repeated himself.
“This is my city!” he said with even more vigor.
It sure was Thursday night.
Back at home for the first time in over a month, the Panthers nearly led wire-to-wire as they defeated Northern Kentucky, 80-75, in a battle for first place in the Horizon League at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
Freeman set the pace with a career-high 28 points for UWM (12-5, 6-1), which won its fourth consecutive conference game and moved a game in front of the Norse (10-8, 5-2) in the league.
The Panthers’ message? Milwaukee, take notice.
“We’ve emphasized that we are the city’s team,” Lundy said. “I think what BJ’s saying resonates that message. This team, they believe that. They look around our campus and there’s city folks on our campus. They’re from Milwaukee. We take a lot of pride in that.”
The Panthers entered the night going up against the conference’s second-leading scorer, Marques Warrick, without a scorer in the top 15 per game in the conference themselves. While the UWM defense antagonized Warrick all night, Freeman made a statement.
“I knew I was going to have to stay here for a long time, so I was going to have to get used to Milwaukee,” Freeman said. “Milwaukee fans have been showing me love and everything, showing the team love, so me saying that, it just feels like home.”
The 6-foot-6 wing was ultra-efficient, needing only 11 field goal attempts to reach his 28 points. Freeman went 5 for 8 from three and has scored at least 23 points in three of the last four games, a stretch during which he’s hit 16 of 31 attempts from deep.
“I wouldn’t even say I’m really in a groove right now,” Freeman said. “I just trust my teammates, trust our coaching staff. They give me the confidence every day at practice to keep playing, keep doing what I’m supposed to do. We just follow what Coach Lundy says. So there’s got to be a big shoutout to my team and the staff for just believing in me.”
His outburst of city pride came at the tail end of back-to-back baskets that stretched the Panthers’ lead to 72-61 with 4:24 left. The Norse responded with an 8-2 run out of the timeout to draw within six points again and would get within four on a pair of free throws with 17 seconds remaining, but three free throws from Markeith Browning II and Freeman sealed the win.
UWM won in spite of Northern Kentucky taking 75 field goals compared to just 47 for the hosts. The Panthers struggled on the defensive glass, allowing 17 offensive rebounds, but held the Norse to just 38.7% shooting overall and 20.6% from three. The Panthers also turned the ball over 22 times but buoyed that carelessness with the ball by shooting 55.3% from the field and 47.8% from three-point range.
Kentrell Pullian scored 15 points and Ahmad Rand added 11 for UWM.
Trevon Faulkner’s 25 points paced the Norse as their leading scorer struggled to get going all night; Warrick finished with 16 points but had to work to get it, taking 21 shots and hitting only seven.
UWM raced out to a 43-31 lead with a torrid-shooting first 20 minutes. Freeman scored 14 points while sinking four three-pointers as the Panthers as a whole shot 63% (17 for 27) from the field and buried eight triples.
The Norse cut the deficit to one midway through the second half as the Panthers couldn’t buy a basket, going seven minutes between field goals. But an Ahmad Rand basket in the paint snapped a 13-2 Northern Kentucky run and, thanks to some undisciplined play by the Norse, the Panthers were quickly able to rattle off a 9-0 spurt to push the lead back to 10. Much of that run came at the free throw line.
“We were fortunate to get to the line,” Lundy said. “I think that’s really what got us out of the hole and stopped the drought. It’s those moments with this young team where I’m standing over there going, ‘Okay, we’ll learn something here. Which way are we going to go?’”
More often than not this year, things have broken in a positive way for UWM when adversity hits.
It’s only Jan. 12, of course, but if the Panthers are playing like this in two months there may not be anyone in the Horizon that can keep them from dancing.
Lundy vows that he won’t let his team think that far ahead. What they will do, though, is look back at the past, to before this season began.
“We were picked ninth,” Lundy said. “We don’t talk about being first – we talk about being picked ninth. I think they have a chip on their shoulder about it.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: BJ Freeman, UWM basketball make statement by beating Northern Kentucky
