Butler fans vote Sheets v. MKE as best three-ball and it’s not even close

Butler University is asking their fans to vote on the greatest three-pointer in school history.

As of last night, Avery Sheets had a 30-vote lead. This afternoon, it’s 115 and not even close.  With 214 votes, Avery Sheets’ three-pointer to win the 2003 Horizon League Regular Season Championship – affectionately known as the “Shot Heard Round Broadripple” – is running away with the contest.

Seven of the twelve choices were in the NCAA Tournament.  All were big shots, but not all were game-winners.  It features two other Horizon League games – namely the Pete Campbell shot at Valpo (infamous around Northwest Indiana) and Zach Hahn’s canned three-ball for the W at Cleveland State.

The vote is here.

Icing the Penguins

There’s no room for error.

That’s the mantra of the Milwaukee Panthers from today until the end of the season.  It’s time for the Milwaukee Panthers to nut up or shut up.

Damian Eargle's ability to alter shots, not just block them, is what makes him deadly.

Last go-round with Youngstown State, Kaylon Williams missed a go-ahead three-pointer and Tony Meier’s second chance opportunity was blocked by Damian Eargle, giving the Penguins a 68-66 victory over Milwaukee in Youngstown on ESPN3.

That game was a tale of two halves – mainly, the first half that featured Blake Allen not guarded by Ryan Allen, and the second half that did.  Allen put the Penguins up big at halftime, and despite being shut down in the second half, other Penguins rallied and got the victory.

Tonight, it’s going to be all about making shots and taking care of the ball so the team can hoist up more of them.  Milwaukee’s offense this season, apart from a few games, is best described as “anemic.”  It has been compounded by the mass attrition due to injury that I mentioned Sunday, but it’s basically all based around the fact that the players we put on the court have been unable to make the runs needed to put winnable games away, or get back into games that got away from them.

Blake Allen had a much harder time shooting over Ryan Allen than Tony Meier.

At Cleveland State, the Panthers were only down eight at halftime by some miracle, and if they had the offense going, might have gotten back into it.  An offensive show has failed to put away teams, and because of the Hack-a-Panther defense’s unfortunate effectiveness, the Panthers need to score a lot more away from the charity stripe to mitigate their problems at the line.

The key to this game will be to take it right at their inside players.  Damian Eargle is an all-conference level performer, but he won’t be able to guard both James Haarsma and Kyle Kelm.  Kelm is too long and skilled for him to be able to effectively guard, and Haarsma is too headstrong and assertive for him to pile up the blocks.  They can pound it inside and force Eargle to do acrobatics to block and alter shots without drawing fouls.  Milwaukee needs to get back to taking high percentage shots, and if they can get Eargle in foul trouble, they’ll have a field day inside.

When I say high percentage shots, that means taking solely three-pointers if your name is Paris Gulley or Tony Meier.  Both players have proven that they are much better shooters from 21 feet away then they are inside – Gulley’s floaters particularly draw the same kind of swooping feeling you get when you miss a step going downstairs.

All in all, it’s going to be a difficult game if the Panthers allow Youngstown State to force a lot of turnovers and get up early.  Both teams have lived and died by the three, and unfortunately for Milwaukee they are 267th in the nation at shooting beyond the arc.

Should the Panthers come out angry – and I would, considering the Penguins are the team that knocked them off the top 3PT defense pedestal – on the defensive end, look for a stiff defense on the perimeter.  If they don’t come out angry, and allow the ‘Guins to make the extra pass that nets them the open three-pointers they’re looking for, then it could wind up being a long night at the Cell.

News and notes on Monday

A few pretty big things happened Monday, and I was out on the town and unable to post until tonight.  We’re putting them into one post – the YSU preview will be up after this.

– Milwaukee draws Fairfield in ESPN BracketBuster.  The Fairfield Stags are fourth in the MAAC at 11-10 overall, 6-4 in conference play.  The Stags have lost close games recently to Manhattan and Loyola (Md.) and dropped a double-digit game to Iona in their most recent loss.  Milwaukee has won only one BracketBuster game, despite being one of a select group of teams to play every year in the event.

There won’t be much on the line this year. Seeding for the NCAA Tournament should either team win their conference tournament is about the only thing I can think of.

Next year, however, it’s a good mid-major game, on the east coast.  While the program may have preferred a closer, regional game, an east coast game against Fairfield gives us a game that point guard recruit Jordan Aaron’s family can easily reach.  It also gives us a game where potential New York area recruits have a chance to see the team in person, which is always a big deal in recruiting.

– That Facebook vote is still going despite having decided the game earlier today.  Green Bay-WSU won over Milwaukee-Detroit despite Milwaukee carrying an average attendance of 1,600 more than Green Bay.

It’s fair to say that this game was poorly marketed by Milwaukee Athletics.  The marketing department may not have the budget they need to make real waves with attendance, but social media guerilla marketing is free and should not have been handled as poorly as it was.  The same goes for our SID – the load on the three main guys has lightened a bit as intern Tim Prahl (go Tim!) has taken the reins on some of the smaller sports. Basically, this is how I see it:

The second voting opened, there should have been a huge guerilla marketing campaign on the internet.  @PouncePanther, @MKEPanthers, @CoachJeterUWM, each of their Facebook pages, the texting thing they do with students, the Panther Pack e-mail address list – every single one of these things should have been SCREAMING for people to vote.  And you can keep it going.  It’s as simple as making a checklist and following the checklist every six hours or so.  Obviously you don’t want to text students every six hours, but once every 3-4 days over the course of the vote isn’t a bad thing.

@MKEPanthers has 1,342 followers.  It was updated four times in the past week – once to announce the women’s soccer hire, once to call people to vote (Sunday night at 10 p.m.), and twice in the past few hours trying to get people to come to the game tomorrow and announce the Fairfield game.  ONE TIME it was updated to tell people to vote, and that was when the vote was practically finished!

In that same time, @PouncePanther was updated THIRTEEN times.  It still only had one “call to vote” around the same time (9:33 p.m. Sunday) as @MKEPanthers.  This is a problem.  Whoever is controlling both – we know it’s the same person because the updates on @MKEPanthers are mimicked immediately by Pounce – needs to recognize that @MKEPanthers and the Milwaukee Panthers Facebook page should take precedence.

The Milwaukee Panthers page has 5,267 “likes,” which means that whenever they make a post, that goes to 5,267 people immediately.  Those people are Facebook users.  How many of them missed the vote?

On the page, the Horizon League Network page came and commented on the Milwaukee Panthers page telling people to vote.  However, for the 5,267 people, they didn’t see it unless they went to the Milwaukee Panthers page.  If the Milwaukee Panthers page was updated with that same message – a simple copy, paste, submit – all 5,267 people would have seen the message.

– Marketing with social media is kind of haywire for the Milwaukee Panthers, as you can see with the previous rant.

So the athletic department has two pages on Facebook and multiple Twitter accounts.  Each has a following.  Both should take care of everything “press release” for men’s basketball because all the fans need to know.  You need to get your fan base excited for games and knowledgeable.

Then, each page needs to take things in their own direction beyond that.  @MKEPanthers and the Milwaukee Facebook page should be dealing with everything game related – starting discussions on the lineup, offense, defense, real x’s and o’s stuff.  The @PouncePanther account and Pounce Panther Facebook page should deal with all the cutesy stuff – pictures of Pounce around campus, interacting with fans (although @MKEPanthers can interact too).  Social media in the department is a mess and it doesn’t have to be.

Basically, everyone in the Milwaukee Athletics department that has a hand in marketing needs to become a religious follower of Andy Pawlowski. That would be @AndyPawlowski of DigitalHoopsBlast.com and

It’s official: ESPN and the Horizon bone us again

In case you were unaware before, the Horizon League and ESPN decided that they were going to put two games to a vote as to which game would make it on ESPNU.

Last time, the vote was between Green Bay versus Cleveland State and Milwaukee versus Youngstown State.  As you know, the GB-CSU game won, forcing Milwaukee fans to watch their road game at Youngstown State on ESPN3.

Well, be prepared to watch the Horizon League match-up on February 10th against Detroit on ESPN3.com as well.

That’s because in a second vote, the Horizon League and ESPNU have decided to put the Green Bay at Wright State game on ESPNU over the Milwaukee at Detroit game.

In a short voting session on Facebook, the Panthers saw their second shot at a nationally-televised game evaporate before their eyes.  The final vote came back at 1,801 to 1,759, a mere 42 votes to decide a nationally-televised game.

Here is the full vote.

The Panthers will play at Detroit on ESPN3.com, their fourth such game this season.  The Youngstown State game, Northern Iowa, and Michigan State were all played on the internet.  Michigan State was on BTN.com, the pay website for the Big Ten Network.

So what should your reaction be to this news?  OUTRAGE.

The Horizon League and ESPN decided to put games up for a vote in the first place, which was ridiculous.  It’s one thing to try and get people interested in your brand through social networking, it’s another thing entirely to screw over universities in the process.

Put it this way.  Not only are fans in Washington D.C., Phoenix, Chicago and elsewhere (big pockets of Black and Gold) unable to see the Panthers play their game at Detroit, but so are recruits that the coaching staff are desperately trying to bring to Milwaukee.  With this move made by the Horizon League and ESPNU, the Panthers have effectively been shut out of national television.  Recruiting players in the area is nice – Time Warner Sports puts us in a decent percentage of southeast Wisconsin homes (although not nearly enough).

But we don’t recruit solely in southeast Wisconsin.  We recruit nationally.  And how are players from around the country supposed to see Milwaukee as a big-time mid-major program if they have to crowd around a computer screen to see our games?

It doesn’t even make sense.  Forty-two fans separate the winner and loser.  I don’t know if I’m mistaken, but I’m pretty sure many fans from every school in the conference don’t have Facebook.

In fact, I overheard a discussion in the minutes leading up to the Valpo game between two season-ticket holding fans. “Why are they putting it on Facebook? I don’t have Facebook!”

The truth is, Milwaukee just got screwed out of another game.  Despite averaging about 1,600 more fans per game than Green Bay, it is the Phoenix fan base that will be watching their team on the road at Wright State.

Battered and bruised

At one point, near the end of today’s game with Valparaiso, coach Rob Jeter looked to his bench for someone to put in the game.  He didn’t see a player that fit what he wanted to do on the floor, so he didn’t put in anyone.

Jeter beat Stevens straight up, and he did it with a battered team.

These are your Panthers, January 2012.

We knew it was going to be hard for Milwaukee to win a championship this season.  The roster is absolutely a championship roster, and barring injury the Panthers would likely be at least top two, probably leading the conference.

But that’s the problem. You can’t bar injury.  It’s part of the game.  When this season concludes, the Milwaukee Panthers very well may have gone to the NCAA Tournament.  They very well may finish fourth, where the Horizon League coaches and SID’s thought they would end up.  They could finish worse, although there seems to be a pretty strong divide between the upper five and lower five in the conference.

What we do know, however, is that this Panthers team would have been a much more difficult foe if they could ever put a full team on the court.

In no game this season will the Panthers put up the preseason projected starting five of Kaylon Williams, Ja’Rob McCallum, James Haarsma, Tony Meier, and Ryan Allen.  For the first several games, Tony Meier was out with a calf injury that sidelined him for well over a month. Once he got back, McCallum hit the bench by re-injuring a wrist that had surgery over the previous summer.  Lonnie Boga, who figured to be Ryan Allen’s top backup, a glue guy and scorer, is missing the entire season with a shoulder injury.

Williams has been battling knee and ankle problems for the past month and a half.

Losing Milli and Vanilli was bad, but it got worse.  Ryan Allen and Kaylon Williams have been paramount to the walking wounded for the past month and more with nagging ankle and knee problems brought on by countless hard bumps and the rigors of playing 30 or more minutes per game.

The guard depth got much thinner when Evan Richard went down with a back injury.  It forced Mitch Roelke – who began college not even as a walk-on but as a manager – into significant minutes the past couple weeks.

In addition to those, Kyle Kelm missed the Wisconsin game where we lost by six.  The post was already thin with the decision to redshirt J.J. Panoske, but injuries and formations have forced the coaching staff to rely on Ryan Haggerty and Christian Wolf in crucial situations.  Not that they have been disappointed – Haggs and Wolf have both been pleasant surprises in their time on the court, even though each is limited offensively.

Is it any wonder why the Panthers struggle getting points?  Williams, Allen, and Meier are all hobbled from their own injuries, it’s hard for them to get the kind of set feet they need to have to make the long distance bombs.  It is quite noticeable when Meier takes shots.

Meanwhile, other Horizon League contenders are enjoying relatively smooth seasons on the injury front.  Of the other four contenders – Cleveland State, Youngstown State, Butler and Valparaiso – only CSU has suffered a truly significant injury, with Sebastian Douglas out for the season.  Every one of the other teams is putting the same team on the floor that they did in November and projected to put out over the summer.

What becomes important the rest of the season, as Milwaukee attempts to win another conference championship and make it to the NCAA Tournament, is for the Panthers to really buckle down, grind it out, continue to play defense at an exceptional level, and get back to scoring points when needed.

It’s going to take an extraordinary amount of heart for the Panthers to overcome the physically demanding stretch run and make it back to the promised land.