Detroit Mercy ended the Milwaukee Panthers’ season with an 84-63 win in the first round of the 2026 Barbosol Horizon League Championships on Wednesday at Calihan Hall in Detroit. The Panthers, who finished their season with a 12-20 record, were eliminated from the tournament after struggling with injuries throughout the year.
Milwaukee started the season expecting to rely on key players Danilo Jovanovich, Seth Hubbard, John Lovelace Jr., and Amar Augillard. However, all four missed significant time due to season-ending injuries and did not play in this postseason game.
Head coach Bart Lundy addressed the challenges his team faced: “We took our lumps, but through adversity and through hard things, you have to grow and get better,” Lundy said. “I hope that this will help our program in the long run. It’s hard to go through right now. We were picked to win the league, and this is tough to take. But I don’t know how many groups could have sustained the lumps that we did and kept it together. Credit our seniors for keeping the group together. They’re high-character guys.”
Sekou Konneh led Milwaukee with 13 points and nine rebounds. Josh Dixon and Chandler Jackson also reached double figures, scoring 12 points each.
For Detroit Mercy, TJ Nadeau scored a team-high 17 points with six rebounds, while Tyler Spratt added 15 points.
Milwaukee briefly led early but struggled offensively as Detroit Mercy went on a decisive 14-0 run in the first half. The Titans maintained control for most of the game, extending their lead multiple times.
Coach Lundy commented on his team’s performance: “I thought we were getting good looks,” he said about Milwaukee’s start. “I thought they were a little more aggressive than we were. Their physicality made us rushed and maybe we were a little overanxious. I thought we were getting good shots, and we were getting paint touches. A little frustration set in because the shots weren’t going down. We were only down 14 at half – we needed to come out and start the second half well. And we didn’t.”
Milwaukee shot just 37.1 percent from the field and made five of their 22 three-point attempts while converting 60.6 percent of free throws (12-of-20). Detroit Mercy shot 53.6 percent overall and hit seven three-pointers while making over 80 percent from the line.
The win marks Detroit Mercy’s first postseason victory over Milwaukee since 1998 and sends them to their first tournament semifinals since 2013.
Reflecting on next season, Lundy said: “We hope that the core group can come back and use this experience and this adversity to grow,” he said. “I am not much for moral victories, but sometimes when bad things happen, you grow. You grow more when you hit adversity. So, we need to grow, and we need to get better. And find a way to keep guys healthy.”
The Milwaukee Panthers men’s basketball team represents University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee athletics in NCAA Division I competition as part of the Horizon League (official website). The team is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (official website).
