Photo: mkepanthers.com
UW Panthers Head Coach Bart Lundy
UW Panthers Head Coach Bart Lundy
It has been a while since the UW-Milwaukee men’s basketball program has been relevant. Fans will remember the days when Bruce Pearl made the Panthers a March Madness regular. Rob Jeter continued the program’s winning habits in the Horizon League, only to be spurned by the rise of Butler as a mid-major powerhouse.
UWM’s last winning campaign came in 2015-16, Rob Jeter’s final season, and Milwaukee has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2014.
Patrick Baldwin Sr. was the latest coach to receive a shot at turning around the program, with minimal success. Baldwin Sr. even recruited his son—five-star prospect Patrick Baldwin Jr. who had offers from every blue-blood college basketball program.
It was a last gasp move that backfired. Baldwin Jr. struggled with injuries, and the Panthers limped to a 10-22 record and a first-round exit in the 2022 Horizon League Tournament. After a 57-92 record and five losing seasons, Baldwin Sr. was out of a job.
In came Bart Lundy, a former director of basketball operations at Marquette who most recently was the head coach at DII powerhouse Queens University of Charlotte (NC).
UWM basketball fans might remember that their last head coach from the DII ranks was Bruce Pearl, architect of the historic Sweet 16 team in 2005, and Lundy looks to bring a similar fast-paced, aggressive style of basketball back to Panther Arena.
Defensively, the foundation is, “Hard-nosed man-to-man [defense],” Lundy says. On the other side of the ball, the new coach wants to employ, “an offensive philosophy of pacing and space—way, way, way faster paced than what they were playing before.”
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This blueprint was previously successful for UWM, and this year, it has helped the Panthers achieve their best start since the Jeter years.
First Half Overview
UW-Milwaukee has begun the season 11-5, with an 8-5 record versus Division I opponents. While none of these wins came against high-level competition (two wins versus teams in the top 200 of Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency ratings), the Panthers have already surpassed last season’s victory total.
Lundy’s team is also 5-1 in Horizon League play—good enough to be tied for first place—an impressive mark considering Milwaukee finished ninth out of the 11 teams in the preseason poll.
The Panthers ditched the poor chemistry that the on-court chemistry issues that hindered the team’s performance, improving on both ends of the floor.
The one concern still holding UWM back is turnovers. Through their first six DI contests, UWM had the third-worst turnover rate in the country. A 27-turnover showing against Iowa St—a game where Milwaukee had more turnovers than made field goals—was the nadir.
Since the start of December, the Panthers have taken much better care of the ball, ranking slightly above the national average for turnover rate. This has led to a better offensive efficiency margin and a spot at the top of the Horizon League.
On-Court Adjustments
Lundy’s biggest challenge entering his first season in the Cream City was improving an offense that finished 346th (out of 358 teams) in KenPom’s efficiency ratings last year. The Panthers are hardly elite scorers, but their 267th-ranked offense is a jump of 79 spots from last season.
“I don't over-complicate the offense,” Lundy said after earning the job. “It's going to be good spacing, modern. I'm an analytics guy, so we want to take the right shots. Make the guys as efficient as they can be. Put them in the spots where they can be successful.”
In more explicit terms, this means attempting more three-pointers, more shots at the rim, and fewer mid-range shots—all of which the Panthers are doing this season.
Per college basketball analytics website Haslametrics, UWM takes the 46th-most near-proximity shot attempts per game (a fancy way of saying shots at the rim) among DI teams—a significant increase for a team that ranked 301st in that category last year. The Panthers also attempt far more three-pointers per game this season and hit them at a higher rate.
The increased attempt rates from beyond the arc and at the rim mean a marked decrease in mid-range jumpers. In 2021/22, 34% of UWM’s field goals were mid-range efforts, placing the Panthers in the 86th percentile among Division I teams.
The Panthers’ top three scorers—DeAndre Gholston, Patrick Baldwin Jr, and Josh Thomas—attempted 41% of their field goals from mid-range while hitting just 39% of them. Hardly the pinnacle of efficiency. Through two months this season, the Panthers cut their mid-range attempt rate by more than half.
Defensively, Milwaukee is still a work in progress, but UWM is giving up six fewer points per 100 possession versus last season. Lundy’s offensive philosophy carries over to the other end of the floor, where his Panthers force opponents into low-efficiency shots.
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In a January 5 game against Cleveland State, Milwaukee forced the Vikings into 30 mid-range shots while successfully speeding up a CSU team that ranked among the slowest in the country. UWM won while posting one of its best defensive efficiency margins on the season.
New Personnel
The Panthers are led offensively by a trio of sophomores. Dodge City Community College transfer BJ Freeman leads the way with 12.1 PPG. He is flanked by another pair of junior college transfers—Kentrell Pullian and Markeith Browning II—who provide a similar scoring punch.
Their superior shot selection emphasizes Lundy’s offensive reform. 83% of the shots taken by Freeman, Pullian and Browning are either three-pointers or at the rim, and their true shooting percentages (which calculates the relative worth of free throws and three-pointers into a player’s shooting percentage) all exceed the marks set by Baldwin Gholston, and Thomas in 21/22.
Yet the Panthers’ most impactful player thus far has been Ahmad Rand. A lanky, disruptive big man and an explosive jumper, the 6-8 Rand has the best block rate in the country—averaging 2.6 swats per game while playing less than 18 minutes per contest. During a recent stretch, the former Oregon State center posted 14 blocks across three games.
While not a prolific scorer (around 8 PPG), Rand has also been quietly efficient, making nearly 75 percent of his shots at the rim. Against St Thomas (MN), Rand was a perfect 9-9 with 18 points and four blocks. The game ended in defeat, but three other Panthers reached double figures, reflecting Lundy’s balanced offensive attack.
Second Half Outlook
In each of Patrick Baldwin Sr.’s four seasons at the helm, the Panthers were at .500 or better through the first four Horizon League games before capitulating down the stretch.
Last season included two losing streaks of six games, while this year’s team has only lost back-to-back games once while playing a harder non-conference schedule.
Baldwin attracted high-level talent, but poor chemistry handicapped his teams. Lundy addressed this imbalance, saying: “I think the chemistry issues they had were big. They didn't play together; they didn't seem to be a cohesive unit. We've got to establish that, 'Hey, we're going to be in this together,' and we're going to share the ball and we're all going to guard hard.”
This model has proved successful thus far. Lundy’s group is a scrappy, energetic bunch that, despite some inconsistent play, combines unrelenting tenacity with occasional moments of brilliance.
The Cleveland St contest highlighted the Panthers’ growing poise. With a few seconds left in the game, Milwaukee — which trailed nearly the entire half — was down by three. BJ Freeman’s corner three rimmed out, but in flew Josh Thomas, who, in one motion, corralled the team’s 16th offensive rebound of the night and threw it back to Freeman.
The Panthers’ leading scorer made no mistake the second time, tying the game with just over one second left.
Before Freeman’s trey, the Panthers had a 1.3% chance to win, per ESPN Analytics. Lundy attributes the comeback to his team’s perseverance. “We talked about it at halftime,” Lundy said. “We had to be gritty and get some stops. It was a rock fight the whole time. We got contributions from everyone … just a great team effort.”
After taking down Cleveland St, Milwaukee defeated preseason favorite Purdue Fort-Wayne—a road contest the Panthers led nearly wire to wire. “I know that this group’s got the ability to win games, win games on the road, and be a really good Horizon League team,” Lundy asserted after the Fort Wayne game.
Next is a matchup against Northern Kentucky, whose 5-1 record in conference play matches the Panthers’ mark at the top of the league. Lundy revitalized the program. Now, Milwaukee faces a new set of challenges as a Horizon League contender.
