The comeback kids did it again.
Led by big second halves from both BJ Freeman and Faizon Fields, the UW-Milwaukee Panthers earned themselves a spot in the Horizon League Tournament title game for the first time since the 2016-17 season by knocking off defending champion Northern Kentucky, 82-75, Monday night at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis.
Freeman scored 22 of his 27 points and Fields 14 of his 16 over the final 20 minutes as UWM registered its sixth comeback from a double-digit deficit this season in winning its sixth consecutive game, the longest such streak for the program since February of 2014.
Box score: UWM 82, Northern Kentucky 75
The Panthers (20-14) also reached 20 victories for the second consecutive season under coach Bart Lundy and will face top-seeded Oakland at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
It will be the eighth trip to the title game for UWM, which last won the championship in 2014.
The Panthers used red-hot shooting – 54.8% – in the second half to flip the script on the Norse (18-15), who got a career 33-point game from Trey Robinson but only four points on 2-for-16 shooting from star Marques Warrick.
Milwaukee also hit 21 of 30 free throws (70%) compared to the Norse‘s 12-for-15 effort and crushed on the boards, 50-28. Fields had a career-high-tying 16 to lead the way.
Freeman, who’d suffered through a miserable 2-for-11, five-point first half, awakened coming out of the locker room for the second half, just as he had in leading the way over UW-Green Bay in the quarterfinals.
He scored the Panthers’ first five points, and then Fields rattled off nine straight with his layup making it a 49-45 game with 15 minutes 2 seconds remaining.
Following a Norse layup, an Erik Pratt layup kicked off a 10-0 run that put UWM into the driver’s seat.
A Langston Wilson layup gave the Panthers their first lead of the night at 52-52 with 12:29 left. Then, a couple of minutes, later an emphatic two-handed dunk by Fields in traffic made it 59-53 and forced a timeout by Norse coach Darrin Horn.
It did little good to stem the tide, however, as UWM essentially eschewed the three-pointer and instead attacked the paint with abandon. The aggressiveness paid off repeatedly in the form of layups or free throws while on the other end Northern Kentucky converted on just three field-goal attempts in over 10 minutes.
A driving dunk by Freeman started a personal six-point spurt for the junior wing and continued the theme for the Panthers, who then salted the game away at the free-throw line.
Freeman hit 9 of 24 shots and 8 of 12 free throws in 32 minutes while Fields helped shift the momentum of the game with his high energy in the lane. He hit 7 of 12 shots.
Kentrell Pullian added 10 points while all 10 players who saw the floor for UWM found their way into the scoring column.
It was a much different game to start for the Panthers as Freeman, coming off a monster 32-point game in the Panthers’ quarterfinal upset of Green Bay, hit just 2 of 11 shots and committed three turnovers in a five-point first half for him.
Turnovers were the story of the initial 20 minutes, with the Norse cashing the Panthers’ nine miscues into 18 points.
UWM went 0-2 against Oakland in the regular season, losing 100-95 on the road on Jan. 4 and 91-87 in two overtimes at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Jan. 27.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM beats Northern Kentucky to reach Horizon League championship game
