In a series of dispatches, award-winning college basketball writrer and former USA Today columnist Mike Lopresti will share features with HorizonLeague.com. Today, Lopresti looks at a Milwaukee program rebooting itself.
Where to begin, after an 8-24 season?
Some of the days must have been long for Rob Jeter. Some of the nights even longer. He has had won a lot of games at Milwaukee since taking over in 2005, so 8-24 was a terribly wrong turn into frustration.
“I’ve been around a lot of winning programs,” he said. “I think for us, it’s making sure the guys are doing things that prepare them for what’s next. It was difficult of the court, but it wasn’t difficult off the court. With the kind of team I had, I was proud of some of the things off the court.
“This will be my ninth season in the league. Was I disappointed? In some ways. But discouraged? Never discouraged.”
So he planned on how to change direction, and quickly. Just like he did after going 9-22 in 2007, when he put together the pieces for a long run of winning seasons. “This isn’t my first time,” he mentioned.
But the question stands. Where to begin, after 8-24?
“For us,” Jeter said, “it’s all about trying to get that respect back for Milwaukee basketball.”
That effort goes forth across every platform. How to play, who to play with, even where to play. The Panthers are looking for a total transformation. So in order. . .
How to play? Start with defense. “First thing for us is, definitely, we have to be a gritty, stingy team,” Jeter said. “And rebounding. We need to get stops and we need to get rebounds. Then everything else can take care of itself.”
Jeter does not need reminding that Milwaukee was last in the Horizon League last season in rebounding margin, by a bunch, being outrebounded by nearly five a game.
A better shooting percentage wouldn’t hurt, either. Milwaukee’s 38.8 shooting last season was lowest in the league.
Who to play with? Twelve different players started a game last season, a hallmark of injury-induced uncertainty. Jeter hopes for more stability but also help from several new faces, starting with point guard Steve McWhorter, an Indiana State transfer returning to his Wisconsin roots.
McWhorter’s arrival is of particularly good news to Jordan Aaron, who might look like a point guard at 5-10, but is Milwaukee’s top returning scorer. He manned the point guard spot out of necessity but will be more at home moving to a shooting guard position. “Having Steve out there,” Aaron said, “will open up a lot.”
Where to play? That’ll be going back downtown to the U.S. Cellular Arena, a move Jeter is hoping puts some spark into the program as a reminder of some of the good days of the past.
“It’s exciting. There’s a lot of history at the Cell,” he said. “A lot of history for our program, and not only our program, but for the city and the community. We like to talk at Milwaukee about being part of that community. There’s no better place to be in the midst of the community than to be right downtown.”
So put it all together, and Jeter is planning on a different Milwaukee.
“For us, the term rebuilding has been used,” he said. “I like to look at it more as trying to reload with new faces.”
Rebuild. Reload. Revive. Re-something. Jeter does not plan on being down for long.
“For me as a coach, it really enforces a lot of what we really believe in. That’s why this summer and this preseason has been good,” he said.
Plus, there is the fresh parable of Wight State. Milwaukee is picked to finished last in the league this year, just as Wright State was last year. The Raiders ended up nearly winning the league championship game.
“With those new faces, that means we need a lot of buying in right now, so we’ve been really working on getting the guys to buy into Milwaukee basketball,” Jeter said. “When Wright State matured, they blossomed into a competitive team. For us, once we have that buying in, and if the leadership emerges, if we get those two things, things start to fall in place, kind of like Wright State.
“How quickly can that happen? We’ll see.”
