45-23.
Your Milwaukee Panthers are not firing on all cylinders lately. Markeith Browning's absence due to ankle injury and opponents' laser focus on BJ Freeman have proven too much for this team to bear (as of yet, at least).
Saturday night in Moon Township, PA wasn't much kinder to the Panthers than Youngstown, OH was this past Thursday night.
Milwaukee (18-10, 12-6 Horizon) was able to match the Colonials for the first 10 minutes of the game. Despite a bevy of turnovers (RMU actually had 3 more than us at 19 on the game), the Panthers were keeping things close, even capturing the lead at 21-19 with just 9:30 remaining the the first half.
And then came another dreaded counter-BOOM.
FG 3PT FT
41.5% 43.8% 56.3%
45.8% 44.4% 77.8%
Kahliel Spear, Enoch Cheeks, Jackson Last and company completely dismantled the (now-tied for) second place Milwaukee Panthers. Infinite uncontested triples and wide open post lanes saw Robert Morris steadily stack its lead up to the point where, with 8 minutes left, down 60-49, everyone watching knew it was already over.
Elijah Jamison had some big moments and scored 13, but our PG having only 1 assist is not a good indicator. BJ Freeman also had just 1 assist. It was as if the constant double on Freeman threw off whatever our planned strategy was. Other than a few rolling screen weaves (whatever that play is called) that did set up good shots, we just free-styled it for the next the 30 minutes. And we were not free-styling well...
Freeman looked like he fell into quicksand on several offensive possessions. If there are 2 opponents on Freeman that must mean... (an open Panther? possibly? 🤷).
45-23.
That is the rebounding total for each team last night and also the biggest reason we lost. The team will need to adapt or we won't see the 20 wins a lot of people thought were certain just 2 weeks ago.
I hope, like the "foul when on defense and up by 3 with seconds left", we figure this out- Freeman is a great individual player; he's not our entire team. We still are a good team. I'm less optimistic about our HLT chances but anything can happen when the sparks start to fly in the postseason.
Perhaps we've gotten some breaks. For instance, our last 4 wins were decided by a combined 12 points (average margin of victory of just 3pts). Perhaps we really are not as good as our record would suggest.
And so it ends? This successful and wildly entertaining cosa nostra of ours? Maybe.
Kind of like the old saying, "show me your friends and I'll tell you what kind of person you are", I believe that if you "show me your bench support of the rest of the team on the floor (and literally nothing else)- and I'll tell you what kind of team you have".
Chemistry (vibes, or whatever you want to call it) is usually the root of it all; and not just in sports.
#GTGBfrfr
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