A trip across the street to the Bradley Center has been on the minds of Panther fans for almost a decade, but when the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee finally got its shot at Marquette the result was disappointing.

The Panthers (3-4) were held to just 39.3 percent shooting in the game while the Golden Eagles (5-1) hit just over 54 percent of their shots in the Panther loss Friday night, 100-65.

Dominic James scored a game-high 22 points for the sixth time in his career, 16 of those points coming in the first half when Marquette led the Panthers 50-33 at halftime. This game is yet to be considered a rivalry, as Marquette has won all 35 match-ups, the only team with more wins over an opponent is Syracuse over Colgate.

"Rivalries are formed by the players on the floor and over a period of time with close games," Golden Eagle head coach Tom Crean said. "You can't create anything just because you talk about it and want it to happen."

The Golden Eagles were able to take seniors Paige Paulsen and Torre Johnson completely out of the game, Johnson had only six minutes in the first half after going out early with two fouls. Paulsen took only seven shots in his 29 minutes, with four points and just two rebounds. Johnson was held to seven points and two rebounds.

“Certainly with Torre, he is our leading scorer and not having him out there effects what we will do offensively. But, I just thought it was a good solid defensive effort by Marquette,” said Panthers head coach Rob Jeter.

Jeter had the Panthers in the game up until the 4:51 mark of the first half when Marquette hit their foul bonus. From there on the Golden Eagles outscored Milwaukee 16-5 to end the half. Ricky Franklin was one Panther that cruised under the Marquette radar, scoring 14 points for UWM.

The second half was more consistent for both teams, but the Panthers could not cut the deficit at all and allowed turnovers to be turned into negative points on the other end of the court.

"I can take away some positives,” said Jeter. “We had some guards step up and play well. We had only 14 turnovers, and nine of those came in the second half when we had a young group out there and things were getting away from us."

Marquette guard David Cubillan tied his season high with 12 points and helped stop the Panthers from gaining the second half momentum that they have proved to do in past games.

Both coaches saw play from their bench as well. The Panthers had all 14 eligible players in the game at one time of another, with only three players not getting any points. Crean used 12 players off his bench and didn’t pull his star guard, James, until the 4:11 mark in the second half.

Although they lost, the Panthers performed well in several respects. UWM had just 14 turnovers and hit 48 percent in the first half. Though they were down at halftime, the Panthers came out strong in the first half, which they have failed to do all season.

"We just have to keep battling," Jeter said. "I told my guys, 'Keep your heads up.' We were beaten very good tonight and now we have to get back to the drawing board."

The Panthers will start Horizon League play on a road trip to Chicago to take on the University of Illinois-Chicago Thursday and Loyola on Saturday.

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