Team preview: Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Blue Ribbon Illustrated previews the 2004-05 college basketball season, exclusively on Insider.

Updated: October 20, 2004, 5:40 PM ET
Blue Ribbon Yearbook
Editor's Note: Insider has teamed with Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, long known as the Bible of college basketball, to provide a comprehensive look at all 326 Division I teams.

COACH AND PROGRAM

Sixty wins in three years. Do the math and that means Bruce Pearl's tenure at Wisconsin-Milwaukee is clicking along at one of those magic numbers in college basketball -- 20 wins a year.

The Panthers won the Horizon League regular season last winter with their second consecutive 13-3 league campaign. They barely missed the daily double, losing the conference tournament in Milwaukee against Illinois-Chicago, 65-62, when Ed McCants' three-point shot to force overtime kicked off the rim.

As much as Pearl would like to have won that game and gone to a second consecutive NCAA Tournament, he has no beef with McCants or his team. McCants, a junior-college transfer, was the Horizon Newcomer of the Year -- a complement to league player of the year Dylan Page -- and the Panthers still had a championship season despite losing a posse of veterans from the previous year.


To continue reading this article you must be an Insider

SPONSORED HEADLINES

MORE MEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL HEADLINES

MOST SENT STORIES ON ESPN.COM

ALSO SEE