Boo Davis’ 21 points and Adrian Tigert’s 15 points and 12 rebounds, along with a balanced attack helped the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men’s basketball team claim a 93-64 win against the Upper Iowa Peacocks at the U.S. Cellular Arena Monday, Nov. 21.

This marks the sixth straight home opener win for the Panthers.

UWM (1-1), coming off its season opener 79-52 loss at Memphis in the preseason NIT, looked sharp against Division II Upper Iowa (1-3).

The Panthers forced the Peacocks to commit 24 turnovers and controlled the boards with a 50-28 edge, including a 27-10 edge on offensive rebounds.

Avery Smith came off the bench with 11 points and Joah Tucker also added 11. This game saw 10 different Panthers players with double-digit minutes with 14 Panthers scoring, and no one played more then 22 minutes.

UWM head coach Rob Jeter made his home debut for the Panthers, and collected his first win as the new head coach. Last year Jeter was an assistant coach for the UW Badgers under coach Bo Ryan.

“We made sure we did the things we wanted to do, staying aggressive, taking care of the ball and taking good shots,” Jeter said. “It could have easily turned into a game where we started throwing the ball around the gym and taking bad shots, but we did not let that happen.”

Upper Iowa came charging out of the gates, taking an early 7-0 lead. That lead wouldn’t last long as UWM came back to tie it up 14-14 and would not relinquish the lead again.

The Panthers ended the half on a 12-3 run to take a 59-34 halftime lead.

Boo Davis led UWM with 15 first-half points that went along with four three pointers, and an exciting alley-oop dunk on a pass from Joah Tucker off a steal with four minutes left in the half.

The second half saw UWM hold Upper Iowa scoreless for the first four minutes in building a 65-34 lead, and then was punctuated by an alley-oop dunk from Chris Hill off the back board to the trailing Jason McCoy to take a 69-38 lead.

UWM then led by as many as 35 points in the game.

The Panthers’ next game is at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, against Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tenn.

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