It would appear as though these UW-Milwaukee Panthers have some fight in them.
A little more than 48 hours after being embarrassed on the road at Wofford, they returned home and handed out a hurting of their own – a 92-72 beatdown of a talented Arkansas-Little Rock team at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Monday night, Nov. 10.
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“I thought we flushed it out pretty good yesterday,” said coach Bart Lundy. “I was really hard on them after the game, and then I tried to clean that up yesterday. I think we needed some role definition. We still have some immaturity on the team and I hope that will get better, because we need it to.
“But as far as our play, I thought we played together much better, and we played much tougher defensively and on the glass. Saturday was humbling. I think we thought we were a little better than we were.
“But these guys responded.”
Amar Augillard scored 21 of his game-high 25 points in the first half, connecting on 6 of 10 3-pointers to get the Panthers off on the right foot, and Seth Hubbard became the 33rd player to cross the 1,000-point threshold for his career with UWM.
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But just as big was the play of some of the Panthers’ lesser-known players, including: Esyah Pippa-White, a sophomore guard who came off the bench to notch career highs of 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting (3 of 5 from beyond the arc) in 22 minutes; junior center Tate McKenzie, whose 6-foot-10 frame proved valuable in the paint in 17 minutes when Faizon Fields went to the bench early in the second half with four fouls; and senior wing Aaron Franklin, who scored eight points on a perfect shooting night (2 for 2 from the floor and 4 for 4 from the free-throw line) and grabbed four rebounds in 14 minutes.
“We’ve got really good dudes, and they all want to be on the floor, you know?” Lundy said. “Staying together, staying positive is going to be a really huge key for this group, and people playing their role and stepping in when they’re needed, performing like Tate did tonight and ‘Pip’ did tonight.
“Those guys were huge. Can everybody sacrifice for the team? We’ve got a chance to be really good if that happens.”
Augillard, the Fresno State transfer who was 2 for 10 from the floor and 1 for 5 from beyond the arc in his first two games for the Panthers, drilled three straight 3-pointers out of the chute and added a fourth just before the first media timeout to provide a glimpse of what has been expected out of the senior guard.
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Later in the first half he scored on a driving layup and then canned two more tough 3s on consecutive possessions not long thereafter, forcing Little Rock coach Darrell Walker – yes, the former longtime NBA player and coach – to consider alternative defensive methods to try and slow Augillard down.
“When he sees a couple go in, he’s something else,” Lundy said of Augillard. “He’s a game-changer in that way. Amar is a unique talent. Can we keep him going the right way and performing like we did tonight?
“Our ceiling on this team is so high. Can we keep all these guys going in the same direction? It sure does make me a better coach when they’re all doing what they can do.”
UW-Milwaukee guard Amar Augillard (1) goes to the basket against UW-Parkside in an exhibition game Saturday, October 25, 2025, at the Klotsche Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Hubbard drained a 3 at the buzzer to send UWM into intermission with a 41-38 lead and then opened the second half with another, with the game remaining a one- or two-possession affair in the early going.
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Little Rock had a chance to wrest momentum away when Hubbard was whistled for a technical foul after hanging on the rim too long following a dunk with 14 minutes 1 second remaining, but the Trojans split the free throws and then turned the ball over on the ensuing possession.
It was fitting, then, when Hubbard knocked home his third 3 of the game off that miscue to hit the 1,000-point mark on the nose. The 6-foot-4 guard scored 668 points in two years at Western Michigan, then 277 more at Toledo last season before landing at Milwaukee.
“Just a blessing. Grateful to be able to score that many points,” said Hubbard, who also played a key role defensively by checking 6-7 Little Rock wing Jonathan Lawson – an NBA prospect – for much of his 33-minute stint.
Lawson finished with 15 points in 34 minutes while Hubbard had 18 on 7-for-11 shooting as well as a team-best four assists.
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“But my focus tonight was just getting the win and showing that I could stop the other team’s best player who was supposed to be that guy,” Hubbard conitnued. “Just showing that I’m that guy, too, defensively. That was my focus.”
Hubbard’s three continued what would eventually be a 19-6 run that grew the Panthers’ lead to 65-51 and the outcome was academic from there.
UWM (2-1) shot 53.6% for the game and its 14 made 3s on 30 attempts were its most since knocking down 16 on Dec. 31, 2023. The Panthers also scored 29 points off 15 Little Rock turnovers while giving the ball away only once themselves in the final 20 minutes and also finished plus-6 on the boards to complete a well-rounded, feel-good performance.
“We knew that we had to not get beat up on the glass and take care of the ball to win this game,” said Lundy. “We did both of those.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW-Milwaukee 92, Little Rock 72: Panthers display some fight
