Scores

Thursday, January 19

Valparaiso 69, Loyola-Illinois 48

Butler 57, Illinois-Chicago 49

Friday, January 20

Cleveland State 78, Green Bay 68

Youngstown State 68, Milwaukee 66

Saturday, January 21

Detroit 69, Wright State 53

Valparaiso 60, Illinois-Chicago 55

Butler 63, Loyola-Illinois 57

Sunday, January 22

Cleveland State 83, Milwaukee 57

Youngstown State 77, Green Bay 47

Last week, the Milwaukee Panthers looked to be the emergent team in the Horizon League, but the view of the Horizon – and the small-h horizon – has substantially changed in the course of one week, giving this conference a very old and familiar feeling.

Milwaukee entered the past week with a 6-1 league record and the profile of an ascendant club which also owned the confidence based on a proven ability to rise above the competition. Milwaukee won the Horizon League’s regular-season title by pulling out a couple of typically tough games on the final weekend of the season. The Panthers were the team that came the closest to knocking Butler out of the NCAAs and preventing the Bulldogs from making their second – and far less probable – run to the NCAA national championship game against Connecticut. Milwaukee was not a downmarket team in the league making a surprising push. This was not a young group of untested players. This was not a team unused to adversity; Milwaukee got punched in the mouth plenty of times last season before getting off the canvas to steal the league title. This was not a team that was expected to falter in these backyard brawls. Maybe the occasional stumble was foreseeable, but not a two-game downturn.

Well, hello downturn.

Milwaukee fell in each of its two outings this past week. The Panthers were nudged by a single bucket at Youngstown State, dropping a decision to the most surprising team in the conference. Youngstown State has revitalized itself after years spent in the bottom rungs of the Horizon. The Penguins have made good use of the adversity they’ve faced, and they’re now a mid-tier team in the league without any question. Their program has made – and now consolidated – substantial gains.

Milwaukee then traveled to Cleveland State with a chance to wipe away the taste of that bitter defeat to YSU. However, things only got worse for coach Rob Jeter’s crew. The Panthers were walloped by the homestanding Vikings in an out-and-out laugher. It’s now CSU which holds the Horizon lead at 7-2 alongside Valparaiso, which took care of business in two games this week. A certain team named Butler – ever heard of it? – is right there at 6-3, tied with Milwaukee.

Remember that bumper-car dynamic at the end of a cluttered 2011 Horizon season? It’s baaaa-aaaaaack.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Thursday, January 12

Milwaukee 58, Wright State 38

Detroit 80, Green Bay 73

Friday, January 13

Cleveland State 76, Butler 69

Valparaiso 76, Youngstown State 62

Saturday, January 14

Green Bay 57, Wright State 56

Illinois-Chicago 58, Loyola-Illinois 51

Milwaukee 84, Detroit 74

Sunday, January 15

Butler 71, Youngstown State 55

Valparaiso 72, Cleveland State 66

One of the best defining features of a really good team is its ability to win at different tempos and with different styles. One of the all-time greatest quotes about coaching (albeit within a football context, not a basketball one) came from O.A. “Bum” Phillips, the former boss of the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints, who said of legendary counterpart Don Shula, “He can take his’n and beat your’n, and he can take your’n and beat his’n.” The statement, loaded with countrified wisdom, artfully explains how coaching is supposed to work: You make use of your personnel and develop your players so that they can adapt to whatever circumstances or plot twists come their way.

So far this season in the Horizon League, then, it’s clear that the best team in mid-January is the Milwaukee Panthers. Coach Rob Jeter, whose first season in Brew Town began in 2005, has seen this program through some fruitful years. He guided Milwaukee (formerly known as Wisconsin-Milwaukee) to the NCAA Tournament in his first season and has continued to make the program competitive in the Horizon, even though Butler has become the face of the league and Cleveland State has made an occasional splash in recent years. Milwaukee did win the regular-season title in the 2011 Horizon campaign, hosting Butler in the conference tournament championship game before falling to the loaded Bulldogs. This year, though, Butler just doesn’t have the same level of talent it possessed in prior seasons, and the Panthers are seizing the opportunity with two-fisted totality.

Milwaukee showed how versatile and agile it can be this past week by winning two completely different kinds of games. The Panthers played defense on Thursday, grinding down the Wright State Raiders by holding them under 40 points. Milwaukee could have been mistaken for the Wisconsin Badgers, given its level of defensive proficiency and its ability to put an opponent in shackles for 40 uninterrupted minutes.

Then, on Saturday, the Panthers took off one mask and put on another. They flew up and down the court, scoring 84 points in a hard-earned triumph over the Detroit Titans. The two games were separated by fewer than 48 hours of real time, but Milwaukee showed two different personas in each contest. The ability to make adjustments on a tactical level while also dealing with a two-games-in-three-days sequence suggests that this team is built for the long haul and will be able to adapt to new challenges. Milwaukee’s 2011 regular season title was improbable, given that it emerged from a wild scrum on the final day of the Horizon season. This year, a regular season league championship would be much less surprising, to say the very least.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Tuesday, January 3

Western Michigan 72, Milwaukee 61

Thursday, January 5

Cleveland State 73, Illinois-Chicago 56

Youngstown State 68, Loyola-Illinois 64 (OT)

Friday, January 6

Butler 63, Wright State 62

Valparaiso 73, Detroit 71

Saturday, January 7

Youngstown State 71, Illinois-Chicago 50

Cleveland State 69, Loyola-Illinois 48

Milwaukee 64, Green Bay 63

Sunday, January 8

Wright State 73, Valparaiso 55

Detroit 76, Butler 65

The Horizon League is terrifically contentious… and yet there’s one team that is still winning more than its share of tight battles. The Butler Bulldogs did get knocked off on Sunday by the Detroit Titans, but their close-shave win over Wright State on Friday still maintained the notion that whenever Butler finds itself in a 50-50 coin-flip kind of game that could go either way, the Bulldogs and coach Brad Stevens will win 75 percent of the time. That’s simply the aura Butler has managed to establish after two straight runs to the NCAA national championship game. That might be a tired narrative for all too many college basketball fans, but when you achieve at the level that Butler does, and when you do what Butler does while lacking the brand name or resources of top-flight programs such as Kentucky or North Carolina or Indiana, you deserve to remain on the national radar and a topic of wider conversation in the college basketball cosmos. Butler used late three-pointers to hold off Wright State, and when one considers the notion that BU is without some of the shooters (particularly Shelvin Mack) who populated last season’s roster), it’s that much easier to gain the idea that the Bulldogs will find a way to make the shots they need to make under pressure.

As gamely as Butler continues to compete, however, there are other stories worth talking about in the Horizon League. In fact, Butler’s not in first place (only a game back, but still not in the top spot…), giving way to Cleveland State, Milwaukee, and Youngstown State. Cleveland State and Milwaukee were expected to give Butler a full run in the Horizon – Cleveland State was in position to win last year’s conference but faltered on the final weekend of the season, while Milwaukee won the league and lost at home to Butler in the championship game of the Horizon League Tournament. Youngstown State, however, has been the true revelation in the Horizon this year.

Last season, YSU watched as Cleveland State star Norris Cole dropped 41 points, 20 rebounds, and 9 assists, a great performance but also a sign that the Penguins just weren’t able to stop anybody. This season, Youngstown State has rocketed to a 4-1 record in Horizon competition. Wholesale upgrades on the roster have enabled coach Jerry Slocum to get the most out of this program. Will YSU remain in the thick of the conversation for the entirety of the season? Perhaps the Penguins will hit a wall in February, as teams often will when they’re not used to the long grind of a season while wearing a pronounced bullseye. However, after this past week – in which it stopped Illinois-Chicago and Loyola-Illinois – perhaps the Penguins are only at the start of a special journey in 2012. It would be something if this team stood in the way of Butler or Cleveland State with an NCAA berth on the line.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Wednesday, December 28

Cleveland State 72, Toledo 64

Thursday, December 29

Butler 53, Green Bay 49

Illinois-Chicago 63, Detroit 59

Wright State 64, Loyola (Illinois) 48

Milwaukee 57, Valparaiso 55

Saturday, December 31

Wright State 74, Illinois-Chicago 70 (OT)

Youngstown State 73, Cleveland State 67

Butler 54, Milwaukee 50

Detroit 65, Loyola (Illinois) 54

Valparaiso 90, Green Bay 87

The Horizon League is terrifically contentious… and that’s just after one week of conference play. It’s going to be a fun and endlessly fascinating season in this part of the college basketball world. After a five-team roller-derby-style finish to a cluttered 2011 regular season, the Horizon seems primed to deliver more of the same in a balanced and up-for-grabs 2012 campaign. This past week, one defensive grinder after another showed everyone in the Horizon League that wins are not going to come easily over the next two months, leading up to March Madness.

Butler, the standard-bearer of the league, pulled out two four-point wins in classic defensive slugfests. The Bulldogs know how to wear the hard hat better than anyone else in their part of the neighborhood, and their toughness – mentally as much as physically – paid off for them in a big way. Coach Brad Stevens piloted his team to hard-fought wins over Green Bay and Milwaukee, immediately re-establishing the Bulldogs as the favorite to win the league. There’s a lot of basketball left to be played, but both Green Bay and Milwaukee – Milwaukee in particular – failed to pounce in moments of opportunity. Butler’s confidence could have been wounded with a loss in either one of its games over the past week, but its opponents couldn’t deliver the final blow. As a result, the two-time defending NCAA runner-up will be an even tougher out in the weeks to come.

Elsewhere, Youngstown State delivered a bombshell by stunning Cleveland State. You will recall that in the 2010-2011 Horizon League season, Cleveland State’s former guard Norris Cole – now with the Miami Heat – threw down 41 points, collected 20 rebounds, and handed out nine assists in a win over Youngstown. The ability of YSU to turn around and beat Cleveland State this season shows how diminished the Vikings are without Cole. This loss could carry long-term repercussions for the rest of the Horizon’s season.

Milwaukee might have lost to Butler on Saturday, but the Panthers dug out a two-point win over Valparaiso two days earlier. Valpo responded from that loss to Milwaukee by beating Green Bay in a rare Horizon racehorse game on New Year’s Eve.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Monday, December 19

South Florida 70, Cleveland State 55

Akron 88, Youngstown State 62

Loyola (Illinois) 69, Rockhurst 46

Illinois-Chicago 57, Western Illinois 56

Tuesday, December 20

Wright State 80, Idaho 78 (OT)

Valparaiso 59, Northern Illinois 48

Gonzaga 71, Butler 55

Thursday, December 22

Marquette 64, Milwaukee 50

Cleveland State 63, Sam Houston State 45

Detroit 80, Alabama State 56

Wright State 60, Central Michigan 42

Robert Morris 59, Youngstown State 56

Loyola (Illinois) 59, Canisius 45

Green Bay 63, Idaho 61

Butler 71, Stanford 66

Friday, December 23

IUPUI 97, Valparaiso 88

Dayton 64, Illinois-Chicago 57

The Horizon League took it on the chin this past week. The mid-major conference which has made such a splash on the national scene thanks to Butler (and, in 2009, Cleveland State) was knocked around over the past seven days. Butler, the flag-bearer for the conference, lost by 16 points at Gonzaga, a fact that could not be denied even though the Bulldogs regrouped to beat Stanford a few nights later. Gonzaga is far more of a big-name basketball program than Stanford is, especially at a point in time when the Pac-12 Conference is faltering as a whole. Butler needed to sweep these games in the Pacific time zone to bolster its case for an at-large NCAA Tournament berth. The loss to Gonzaga makes it much more likely that coach Brad Stevens’s team will have to win the Horizon League Tournament in early March to put on its dancing shoes again.

Butler is simply not gifted enough on the wings this year, and it doesn’t have Matt Howard in the paint. The absence of Shelvin Mack’s three-point shooting has caused Butler’s offense to lag this season. The lack of Howard’s interior defense has left the Bulldogs vulnerable to a quality big man such as Gonzaga’s Robert Sacre, who flourished last Tuesday against Butler’s front line. Butler still plays generally feisty defense and is able to establish the kind of tempo it wants – Stevens is a master of orchestrating games from the bench – but the mixture of compatible parts is just not there. It’s not 2010 or early 2011 anymore; the 2011-2012 season just doesn’t feel like a campaign in which Butler will be able to make quite as much magic. The Bulldogs will continue to create special moments such as their upset of Purdue earlier in the month, but they won’t be able to go to the well with the same consistency.

The past week was difficult for the Horizon not just because of Butler’s struggles. Cleveland State endured a terrible 15-point loss to a South Florida team which resides at the bottom of the Big East. Milwaukee failed to take down Marquette and enhance its NCAA portfolio. It’s still December, but time is already running out on the Horizon’s bid to field more than one NCAA Tournament team.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Tuesday, December 13

Wisconsin 60, Milwaukee 54

Green Bay 69, Michigan Tech 61

Oregon State 95, Illinois-Chicago 53

Wednesday, December 14

Cincinnati 78, Wright State 58

Friday, December 16

Central Michigan 70, Illinois-Chicago 67

Saturday, December 17

Mississippi State 80, Detroit 75

Butler 67, Purdue 65

Milwaukee 86, Nebraska Omaha 50

Loyola-Illinois 64, Chicago State 49

Ohio 82, Wright State 54

Toledo 86, Youngstown State 77

Oakland 82, Valparaiso 80

The scene-stealers and showstoppers of the Horizon League have had a tough beginning to their season, but that season just got noticeably better this past weekend at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Butler Bulldogs entered their game against the Purdue Boilermakers with a 4-6 record, but for one afternoon, the flag-bearer in the Horizon looked and felt like the team that has improbably made each of the past two national championship games. Coach Brad Stevens has been struggling to replace the top-shelf talent which resided on last year’s roster. The absences of Shelvin Mack at the shooting guard spot and Matt Howard in the low post have left Butler grasping for reliable and steady production at both ends of the floor. These deficiencies loomed even larger when Purdue uncorked a 46-point first half to take an 11-point lead over the Bulldogs. However, as the second half progressed, Butler put on the mask and mindset of a team that knows how to win. It was as though the players on the BU roster regained their winning edge cultivated over the past two magical seasons.

Butler slowly and steadily reeled in the Boilermakers, flummoxing Purdue with the stifling, rotating, tight-marking defense that has defined the Bulldogs’ rise to the top of the college basketball world. Stevens made halftime adjustments as you’d expect, and BU cobbled together just enough offense to make its defensive prowess impactful. The Bulldogs caught the Boilers at 65-apiece, and with the clock running down at the end of regulation, Butler had a chance to make some more magic. In last year’s first-round NCAA Tournament win over the Old Dominion Monarchs, Butler won on a putback by Howard just before the final horn. This game eerily paralleled that contest, as Andrew Smith – the replacement for Howard on the low blocks – found a miss and put it back with one second left. Purdue couldn’t score on the ensuing inbounds pass, and Butler had its best win of the new season. We’ll see how far this victory can carry the Bulldogs in the coming weeks.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Scores

Monday, December 5

Detroit 69, St. John’s 63

Milwaukee 87, DePaul 76

Tuesday, December 6

Youngstown State 69, Fredonia State 35

Wednesday, December 7

Xavier 73, Butler 61

Wisconsin 70, Green Bay 42

IPFW 85, Valparaiso 76

DePaul 69, Loyola-Illinois 58

Air Force 55, Wright State 34

Thursday, December 8

Cleveland State 62, Robert Morris 58

Detroit 92, Western Michigan 81

Saturday, December 10

Marquette 79, Green Bay 61

Cleveland State 69, Akron 66

Ball State 58, Butler 55

Northern Iowa 67, Milwaukee 51

Loyola-Illinois 57, Toledo 55

Wright State 51, Miami-Ohio 49

Illinois-Chicago 62, Northern Illinois 55

Buffalo 80, Youngstown State 72

Valparaiso 82, Bowling Green 79

Sunday, December 11

Alabama 62, Detroit 54

The truth can hurt, but it can also be a source of comfort,
and after this past Saturday, the Horizon League can say that in most cases, it
is better than the Mid-American Conference, its neighbor in the realm of
mid-major basketball in the Midwest. The two leagues went head to head on a
repeated basis this past Saturday, and when the final tally was taken, the
Horizon led the MAC, five wins to two. It’s true that Butler, the league’s
standard bearer, was taken down by Ball State, a clear indication that the
Bulldogs are not about to make the national championship game (or even the
Sweet 16) this season. Coach Brad Stevens just doesn’t have the horses he was
blessed with in 2010 and 2011. It’s also true that Youngstown State fell to
Buffalo, a disappointing outcome for the Penguins in their attempt to move up
the Horizon’s pecking order. However, those losses were the exceptions in
Horizon-MAC Saturday.

Cleveland State, probably the favorite in the Horizon this
season, fended off a worthy challenge from Akron in a battle of upper-tier
teams from both conferences. Coach Gary Waters has the CSU crew headed in the
right direction, and this win over Akron confirms as much.

Loyola-Illinois defeated Toledo, improving the Ramblers’
attempt to make something of themselves in a time of pronounced struggle for
the Jesuit school that once ruled the college basketball world in the early
1960s. Wright State dug out a close win over Miami of Ohio in a classic
defensive grinder. Illinois-Chicago, a hard-hit program that has been playing
in the shadows of everyone else in the Chicagoland area for far too long, put a
spring in its step with a hard-earned win over Northern Illinois. Valparaiso
shook off a loss to IPFW earlier in the week by bouncing Bowling Green.

Not bad for the Horizon. Not bad at all.

If you live long enough, you’ll see everything.

After watching the ending of Saturday’s best game – one of the most phenomenal college basketball stage productions of the past quarter-century – it’s hard to imagine if there’s anything new still remaining under the sun. Butler and Pittsburgh just might have used up the scriptwriter’s playbook, staging the most improbable way to end what was a classic confrontation between two teams who played their best at the same time.

The Butler Bulldogs upset the top-seeded Pittsburgh Panthers in a thrilling second round epic from the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Saturday evening. In one of the most thrilling and controversial games in tournament history, the underdog Bulldogs knocked off the regular season Big East champions. Trailing by one point (69-68) with seven seconds remaining, Butler ran a tremendous play out of a timeout, which ended with forward Andrew Smith putting the go-ahead layup through the hoop with just 2.2 seconds remaining. It looked as if the Bulldogs, who lost in the national title game last season, were going to continue their upset-minded streak and forge a new tournament run in the nation’s capital city. However, Pittsburgh’s Gilbert Brown took the inbound pass just past midcourt and was subsequently fouled by Butler’s Shelvin Mack with 1.2 seconds left. Brown hit the first free throw to tie the game, and at that point, last year’s NCAA Tournament darling was squarely on the ropes; Brown held Butler at gunpoint and just needed to make one more foul shot to give the Panthers a near-certain victory. He barely missed the second shot, however – the ball grazed the front of the rim, ticked off the inside of the back rim, and bounded out of the cylinder. Butler’s Matt Howard grabbed the rebound – that was no surprise – but what was surprising (to the –Nth degree) is that he was fouled by Pittsburgh forward Nasir Robinson. Two fouls in a matter of seconds left a nation of hoopheads in shock. Howard, Butler’s senior center, headed to the line for a chance to win the game. He only needed to make one shot, so when he drained the first attempt, he was then able to intentionally miss the second one, due to the fact that Pitt had no timeouts left. Howard smartly missed the shot, and Pittsburgh could only launch an 85-foot heave that came nowhere close to the rim. Butler had once again knocked out a top-seeded opponent from the Big East, one year after dispatching Syracuse in the 2010 West Regional semifinals.

This time, however, the way in which Butler won was anything but pedestrian. College basketball fans and historians will be talking about the 2011 Butler-Pittsburgh game for a long, long time to come.

Cleveland State advances, Milwaukee & Valpo eliminated in postseason play

NIT First Round: Cleveland State 63, Vermont 60
This NIT Tournament game featured one of the most amazing endings you’ll ever see. The Vermont Catamounts destroyed the Cleveland State Vikings on the boards, 42-26, but couldn’t hit threes (only 2 of 13 for the night). This imbalance created a very close contest that went down to the last shot. Vermont attempted a game-tying three-point attempt at the buzzer. The ball bounced off the rim not once, not twice, and not even three times. The shot bounced a fourth time on the rim before finally kangarooing away from the basket. Vermont players clutched their heads in disbelief while the Vikings escaped and moved on to round two of this 32-team, five-round event.

NIT First Round: Northwestern 70, Milwaukee 61
Jon Shurna scored 25 points and Michael Thompson added 20 points, leading the Northwestern Wildcats to a victory over the visiting Milwaukee Panthers in the first round of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). The Wildcats jumped all over the Panthers from the opening tip, starting the game on an 18-0 run, and taking a 38-26 halftime lead. Milwaukee got as close as 62-56 in the second half, but the Wildcats quickly regained command, increasing the lead to 68-56 lead on back-to-back three-pointers.

Milwaukee was led by Tony Meier, who made five three-point shots and scored 19 points. The Panthers finish the season 19-14.
The Wildcats improved to 19-13 with the win and will be facing Boston College in an NIT second round contest.

CIT First Round: Iona 85, Valparaiso 77
The Iona Gaels played a near-flawless game in defeating the Valparaiso Crusaders on the road. Iona marched into the Athletics-Recreation center in Valparaiso, Indiana, and registered a mild upset in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. Iona coach Tim Cluess had his team clued in, especially at the offensive end of the floor. The Gaels, the second-place finisher in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in both the regular season and the league tournament, hit 58 percent of their shots in the eight-point win. Iona was eclipsed on the offensive boards by Valpo, 13-5, but when a team makes 58 percent of its shots, it’s not going to have a need for many offensive boards. Four Iona starters scored in double figures, led by Michael Glover, who popped in 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting. You’re not going to lose very often when your best player hits 80 percent of his field-goal attempts. Iona earned a second-round bye with this win; the Gaels await the winner of Buffalo @ Western Michigan to be played on Tuesday night.

By David Minter, Zach Bloxham, Tim Coyne and Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writers

Butler 59, Wisconsin-Milwaukee 44

Cinderella is back, folks.

Senior forward Matt Howard, who only seems like he’s been playing college basketball since the Carter administration, scored 18 points to help the Butler Bulldogs (23-9) coast to victory over the Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers and claim both the Horizon League championship and the league’s automatic invite to the 2011 NCAA basketball tournament.  Junior guard Shelvin Mack added 14 points, as the Bulldogs won their ninth game in a row and claimed their third Horizon League championship in the last four seasons.

Facing a raucous, partisan crowd of more than 10,000 at U.S. Cellular Arena, Milwaukee’s home building, the Bulldogs opened the game on a 25-8 tear, quieting huge swaths of Panther fans.  The home team rallied, getting within 28-20 on a pair of free throws by Mitchell Carter with 2:56 remaining in the first half.  Both teams struggled to make shots throughout the half, but Milwaukee was especially futile on the offensive end, making just 4-of-19 shots from the field (21.1 percent).  The Bulldogs took a 33-20 halftime lead despite making only 39.3 percent (39.3 percent) of their field goal attempts.

The halftime lead quickly mushroomed, as Andrew Smith drilled a jumper, and Shawn Vanzant hit a three-pointer to make the score 38-20.  The Panthers refused to slink away with their tails between their legs, however, embarking on a 19-4 spurt over the next eight minutes to cut the deficit to 42-39 on a lay-up by Ryan Allen at the 9:45 mark of the second half.  That would be as close as the Panthers got, however, as the Bulldogs went on a quick 6-0 run that culminated in a Matt Howard dunk. In a short but crucial span of time, Butler had managed to build the lead back to 48-39 and send a message that Milwaukee would have to do a lot more uphill climbing to get back into contention. The Bulldogs continued their game-closing run, outscoring the mentally weary Panthers 11-5 the remainder of the way to win in convincing fashion.

Tone Boyle, Tony Meier, and Anthony Hill each scored 10 points for Milwaukee.  The Panthers finished the game shooting an abysmal 12-of-40 from the field, and a ghastly 4-of-18 from three-point range.  Milwaukee finished the game with 16 turnovers and only seven made assists, which epitomized Milwaukee’s inability to establish continuity on offense versus Butler’s relentless defense.

Butler’s recent winning streak helped the Bulldogs earn their way back into the NCAA tournament bubble entering this contest.  Tuesday night’s win not only rendered such talk moot, but it eased the minds of the Bulldogs’ faithful, who need not sweat it out Selection Sunday any longer.

Coach Rob Jeter’s Milwaukee team finished first in the Horizon League regular season, which means it has clinched a spot in the National Invitational Tournament.  The Panthers are not a candidate for an at-large invite to the Big Dance, so Sunday shouldn’t be too anxiety-ridden for Milwaukee.

Tim Coyne
DFN Sports Staff Writer