With the Badgers' victory over UW-Green Bay only minutes over, questions already turned to the next two in-state opponents, Marquette on Saturday and UW-Milwaukee on Dec. 15. While the Marquette game may be, as senior guard Sharif Chambliss said, the hottest ticket in Wisconsin, the matchup between UW and the Panthers may be a sleeper game.
The Panthers, off to their best start since the 1992 season, have a a 6-0 start on the back of their own Tucker. Junior forward Joah Tucker scored 21 points in UWM's 57-47 victory over Saint Louis University on Tuesday.
Tucker has proven to be the Panthers go-to guy in crunch situations, taking over in the SLU victory.
Prior to the \close"" win, the average victory for the Panthers 29.4 points.
The key to the team's success has been the defense. Twice the Panthers have held opponents to under 50 points, and in five of the six games has kept the shooting percentage to under 40 percent.
""This is the best defensive club I've had,"" Pearl has said.
Senior guard Ed McCants receives some of the credit for the sharp defense. While not a strong scoring threat, he limited SLU's main weapon, Reggie Bryant, to three of eight shooting.
""Ed has had a very tough defensive assignment the last two games,"" Tucker said.
-UW-Milwaukee Sports Information contributed
to this report.
