A trying time for many college basketball fans, the signing period can seemingly drag on forever.

For the fans of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men’s basketball team, the signing period has dragged on forever and a half. While Milwaukee had signed two recruits over the first three weeks, valuable players signed elsewhere.

The signatures of Ryan Thornton and Roman Gentry have done well to soothe the pain of a long off-season. This past week, the dotted line was initialed by a 6-foot-6-inch forward by the name of Marcus Skinner.

Skinner, a 215-pounder from Mott Community College in Flint, Mich., brings experience to the Panthers’ 2006 recruiting class. The two years he spent in a junior college is two years better than Thornton and Gentry can do; they are incoming freshmen.

UWM coach Rob Jeter believes that Skinner will be a help to the ball club.

A tough player who is described as “explosive” by his coach at Mott, Steve Schmidt, Skinner averaged 14 points per game and seven rebounds last season. It was yet another victory over a Panthers foe, as Skinner chose Brew City over Motown’s own University of Detroit.

Two other schools that had a reported interest in Skinner were Montana State and Ball State.

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