UWM falls to Wright State, 76-69; Danilo Jovanovich out for season

The bad news was the game. Effectively down to eight scholarship players and lacking in size, the UW-Milwaukee Panthers lacked a scoring punch throughout in a 76-69 loss to Wright State. 

The worse news came after, as head coach Bart Lundy confirmed forward Danilo Jovanovich is out for the rest of the season with a torn labrum. 

The hits keep on coming for the Panthers, picked pre-season to win the Horizon League, but who now sit at 5-7 in conference play after losing for an eighth time in the last 10 games. 

The Panthers have been so riddled by injuries that this week they had only eight available players to practice, leaving Lundy and his staff to get in the paint and fight for rebounds. 

On Jan. 30 against the Horizon-leading Raiders, Milwaukee – already undermanned – was undersized with forward Simeon Murchison out with a knee injury and Tate MacKenzie, a game-time decision with a knee injury of his own, only able to play one minute before aggravating it.

Box score

The Panthers at one point rallied to cut a 19-point second-half deficit to four, but with four players playing 30 or more minutes, ran out of gas down the stretch. 

There was life in UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena as Amar Augillard, who led the team with 19 points, deflected a pass with Milwaukee trailing, 52-46, with just under eight minutes to play. Freshman Stevie Elam dove between three Raiders to punch the ball into the Wright State backcourt, where Augillard outraced everyone for a layup to cap a 19-4 run. 

That would be as close as Milwaukee got in the final 26 minutes of the contest, as Raiders guard Michael Cooper buried a pair of dagger threes off of offensive rebounds on consecutive possessions to push the advantage to 11 with 2:50 to play. 

The Panthers scrapped with the Raiders early, forcing 10 turnovers and grabbing 12 of 16 missed Wright State shots in the first half despite playing only three minutes, 41 seconds – 6-foot-9 Sekou Konneh’s minutes – with someone over 6-foot-5 on the court. 

“We’re playing better,” Lundy said. “Our margins are just so thin. Shooting 6 for 12 from the line and 5 of 25 from three, it’s going to be hard to win with our depleted roster."

A scoreless drought of five minutes was the Panthers’ undoing in the first half and they went to the locker room trailing, 36-26, after shooting 1 for 13 from three. 

Wright State’s run to end the period carried over into the second half, ultimately turning into a 25-8 run to take a 48-29 lead with 17 minutes left. 

“That really sunk us,” Lundy said. 

The Panthers defense threw all sorts of looks at the Raiders, from a 1-3-1 trap to backcourt press looks to switching all screens. It was their hustle from these kitchen sink looks that even gave them a fighter’s chance – and against the most efficient offense in the league. 

“I don’t know if I have a defensive look I didn’t throw at them tonight,” Lundy said. “It was a lot.” 

But as has been the theme of the month for Milwaukee, it wasn’t enough. 

And now the Panthers will go the rest of the season without Jovanovich, who becomes their third senior expected starter to suffer a year-ending injury after an MRI confirmed the severity of the labrum damage. He joins John Lovelace and Seth Hubbard, the team’s leading scorer before his shoulder injury made Jovanovich the leading scorer, on the bench the rest of the season.

Faizon Fields, a fourth injured senior starter, remains out with a bone bruise on his ankle, though he is expected back before the season ends. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM falls to Wright State, 76-69; Danilo Jovanovich out for season