UW-Milwaukee men's basketball team has won five straight games for the first time in nearly a decade, and coach Bart Lundy is striving for more

UW-Milwaukee head coach Bart Lundy has his team on a five-game winning streak.
UW-Milwaukee head coach Bart Lundy has his team on a five-game winning streak.
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On a night when the state’s two biggest college basketball programs faced off at Fiserv Forum, just down the block another team made a statement that it demands your attention.

UW-Milwaukee jumped ahead of IUPUI early and used a balanced scoring attack for a 74-61 victory to push its winning streak to five games for the first time in nearly a decade.

The last time the Panthers reached that mark? It was as they danced their way to March Madness during the 2014 Horizon League Tournament. At 7-3, UWM is off to its best start to a season since 2015-16.

It’s quite the early season turnaround under first-year head coach Bart Lundy from where the Panthers were last year.

“I’ve always been optimistic,” Lundy said. “I always thought we’d be good. We play against each other every day, so I don’t know (any) other feeling. I wasn’t here last year. I see the gaps that we had and how much growth potential we have.”

UW-Milwaukee gets off to a fast start with hot shooting, limiting turnovers

Against the Jaguars on Saturday, UWM pressed the gas early in jumping out to a 46-33 lead at the half. Led by 10 points from Kentrell Pullian and nine from Justin Thomas, they shot 51.5% (17 for 33) and 44.4% (8 for 18) from deep.

Most important, though, for a team that entered the day as one of the worst in college basketball in terms of committing turnovers: the Panthers took care of the ball. They turned it over only two times in the first 20 minutes, the continuation of a positive theme from their win at UW-Green Bay two days earlier.

UWM pushed its lead as high as 19 with 11 minutes 33 seconds remaining in the second half but IUPUI, which is ranked by the analytics site KenPom.com as the worst team in college basketball, battled back with an 11-0 run to draw within eight points.

The Panthers were sloppier with the ball during the second half with eight turnovers but more than made up for it with their defensive pressure by forcing 18 Jaguars turnovers.

Kentrell Pullian led the way for Panthers, had a key three late in the game

Pullian led a balanced attack for UWM with 18 points, including a dagger three to push the lead to 14 with 2:15 to play. It was one of four triples drained by Pullian, who also didn’t turn the ball over once.

“I told him in the locker that the thing that happens is you’re rewarded for unselfishness and work,” Lundy said. “And he’s been relentlessly in the gym. We had some discussions with him about just lowering his head and driving into bodies. He played really clean tonight.”

Markeith Browning II scored 12 points, Justin Thomas added 11 and six assists and both Jalen Johnson and Ahmad Rand had eight. Ten players found their way into the scoresheet overall for the Panthers.

Bart Lundy looking to create a winning culture

UWM finished the game shooting 46.3% (25 for 54) overall compared to IUPUI’s 45.8% (22 for 48) but more than separated itself in the turnover column and at the free throw line, where it went 14 for 17.

“We try to win the turnover margin, but this was maybe the first time in a Division I game that we’ve won that margin this year,” Lundy said. “That’s beautiful for me to see.”

Also beautiful for UWM? Finding itself back in the win column with regularity. It’s a feeling that hasn’t been around the program much in recent years.

Lundy said he hopes streaks like this soon feel like standard practice.

“Five games is great, but if we’re sitting here talking about 10 games in a row, we’re talking about how we’re playing good basketball,” he said. “Five should be something that we can do and not celebrate it. I know we want to celebrate it and (the team) is celebrating it until midnight but then we get up and get better tomorrow.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM basketball winning streak reaches 5 with win over IUPUI