Roar Report: Spring 2024

ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

MILWAUKEE

CHRIS ZILLS

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS & MULTIMEDIA

SEAN ENGEL DIRECTOR OF ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

RACHEL KLEMP

DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES

SETH DITTMER COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT

GARY D’AMATO FEATURE WRITER

PHOTOGRAPHY

CONLEY BURCH, LEN CEDERHOLM, SPIRIT HESSE, RACHEL KLEMP,

JACK PINGLE, AND STEVE WOLTMAN

CREATIVE SERVICES

BRAEDEN DETERT, JAKE MICHALSKI, GIANNA LAPERNE, AND SPENCER JACOBS

10 SPORT UPDATES

Men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, swimming & diving, track & field, and tennis

18 Q & A WITH AJ BLUBAUGH

The Roar Report had the opportunity to catch up with AJ Blubaugh, the former Horizon League Relief Pitcher of the Year for the Panthers who was invited to MLB Spring Training this season with the Houston Astros. Topics discussed included his experiences as a Panther, his success in professional baseball, and his goals for the 2024 season.

24 NOT DONE YET: NATALIE BLOCK

The Panthers all-everything, Natalie Block, is an eight-time Horizon League champion that holds Milwaukee records in six different events and has been named the Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year for the past three seasons in a row. She looks to close out her school year in style – following a league title during the indoor season in February – as the outdoor slate is about to get underway.

30 TO SHOW UP AND TO WIN

by Gary D’Amato

Heading into a season filled with high expectations for the first time in quite a few years, head coach Bart Lundy and the Panthers ran into more adversity than could have ever been expected. The roller-coaster ride ended in the league championship contest – an impressive feat given the injuryfilled status of his roster this winter.

36 EARNING IT: DOMINIC HAM

Get to know the story behind the rise of Dominic Ham, the ultimate feel-good story about hard work paying off for a student-athlete. Ham’s journey with the MKE men’s basketball team started as a team manger before joining the roster as a walk-on. He then capped his career by earning a spot in the starting line-up - and then never leaving it on the way to the postseason.

42 INFORMATION ON THE PANTHERS EXCELLENCE FUND

what’sINSIDE

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

The Milwaukee women’s track & field team won their tenth Indoor Track & Field Horizon League title in program history and their first since 2012. The Panthers won six events at the meet and broke two program records while winning four individual awards.

CLEMENTS IS A SPLASHING HIT

Head Coach Kyle Clements earned Horizon League Women’s Swimming & Diving Coach of the Year after leading the Panther women to a runnerup finish at this year’s championship meet. The award marks his fifth coach of the year honor since being named head coach in 2010.

LIGHT UP THE HYPE

6 IS THE NEW 5?

Senior Grace Crowley was named the Horizon League’s Sixth Player of the Year following a season that saw her reach careerhigh marks in minutes, rebounds, and points per game, blocks, steals, and field goal percentage.

During the season she became the first Panther in program history to finish a game 10-for-10 from the field on February 3 at Youngstown State.

The Milwaukee men’s basketball team surged at the right time during the 2023-24 season, coming together down the stretch to win five of its final six games of the regular season before taking the fans on a wild ride in the postseason – coming up just one victory short of a spot in the NCAA Tournament after falling to Oakland in the 2024 Barbasol Horizon League Championship.

MEN’S BASKETBALL SPORT UPDATE

Head coach Bart Lundy led MKE to a 20-15 record, giving Lundy back-toback 20-win seasons in his two years as the head of the program as well as the first for the program since 200406. This all despite losing player after player to injury (over 100+ combined games missed by the roster), forcing Lundy to use 19 different starting lineups over the course of the winter.

The team was led by BJ Freeman, who put together a memorable season – in fact one of the most impressive offensive campaigns in school history ... one in which he is one of just four players across the NCAA to average over 20 points (his 21.1 ppg led the league and ranks 13th in the NCAA), six rebounds, and four assists per game this season.

Freeman had his school-record streak of scoring 20-or-more points in 10

straight games snapped in the final contest, finishing with 16 outings of 20+ points - the most for a Panther in over 20 years. On that note, at 21.1 ppg overall, Freeman now leads the league and is the first Panther to average over 20 points a game since Dylan Page (20.9 ppg) exactly 20 years ago – which was also the last time the Panthers had the league’s leading scorer. Despite all of the accolades and going over 1,000 points in his MKE career, Freeman was selected as a Second-Team All-Horizon League honoree.

Faizon Fields enjoyed a breakout campaign, especially after the calendar turned to 2024. In the final 21 games of the season, he averaged over 12 points and 8.5 rebounds a game, shooting over 60 percent from the floor. He shined in the postseason, earning a spot on the Horizon League All-Tournament Team as a result. For the season, he recorded per-game averages of 9.3 points and 6.4 rebounds.

Erik Pratt emerged as a serious scoring threat, finishing second on the squad with his 12.3 ppg scoring clip, shooting 41.0 percent from the floor and 80 percent from the line. Kentrell Pullian also averaged double figures, finishing at 10.4 points a game while adding 4.7 rebounds a night.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SPORT UPDATE

On a wild last day of the 2023-24 regular season, the Panthers entered the afterenoon with a multitude of options heading into postseason play which included reaching as high as the fourth seed, and tumbling as low as the ninth seed in the Horizon League Women’s Basketball Championship.

Milwaukee took on in-state foe Green Bay, and behind a career-high 25 points from Kamy Peppler, and a 17-point effort by Angie Cera the Panthers defeated Green Bay, 65-61, for their first win at the Kress Center since the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season and first win with fans in attendance at the Kress Center since 2014.

The win clinched the fifth seed and a first-round bye for the Panthers, who traveled to fourth-seeded Wright State for the rubber match after the both home teams had won during the regular season. Unforturtunately for the Panthers, they were unable to close out the game as the Raiders won by a 7060 score with a late surge.

Following the season, three Panthers earned postseason accolades as Kendall Nead was named to the

Horizon All-League Second Team, while also winning the league’s inaugural Sportsmanship Award. Grace Crowley was named ‘Sixth Player of the Year’, while freshman Jorey Buwalda earned a spot on the All-Freshman Team.

Buwalda ended her rookie campaign as a three-time Horizon League Freshman of the Week, while Peppler and Nead were each selected as the conference Player of the Week on one occasion apiece.

Other highlights from throughout the season included the team connecting on 17 three-pointers at home against Central Michigan, to set a new mark for three-pointers in a regulation game.

Individually, Nead became just the third different player in program history to score at least 38 points in a game as she tied the program mark with 17 field goal makes in mid-November at McNeese. Peppler tied the single-game mark with 14 assists on the road at Oakland, while Crowley became the first Panther in program history to make 100 percent of her field goal attempts going a perfect 10-for-10 from the field at Youngstown State.

First-year head coach Shaun Wegner earned his first career head coaching victory on March 9, in a 12-inning matchup against Western Kentucky that saw the Panthers come out on top by a 6-5 score.

Wegner leads his young Panther squad on the road for nearly 15,000 miles before the team makes its longawaited home debut on March 28 against Purdue Fort Wayne at Franklin Field.

The Panthers boast the league’s top pitching staff through the first month of the season, spearheaded by Friday starter Luke Hansel, who is towards the top in the Horizon League in earned run average, innings pitched, strikeouts, and opponents’ batting average.

Saturday starter Adrian Montilva, and Gavin Theis are also in the top-10 in the league in most pitching categories, while Logan Snow and Tristan Arnold have been impactful in their spot-start and relief appearances.

Justin Hausser was Milwaukee’s lone regular to return to the starting nine in 2024, with newcomers Sean

Tillmon and Zach Lane proving to be valuable additions to the starting lineup. Returning sophomore Carson Hansen, who was a member of the All-Freshman Team in 2023, currently leads the team in RBIs.

The Panthers play 21 home games this season including their annual showdown with Milwaukee School of Engineering at American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, on April 17. The team will also celebrate Alumni Day on April 27, Scott Doeffek Day on April 28, as well as celebrating this year’s senior class on May 18 against Youngstown State.

The Milwaukee swimming & diving program wrapped up their season on February 17 at the Horizon League Championships, where the women finished as the runners-up and the men placed fifth.

Head Coach Kyle Clements was named the Horizon League’s Women’s Swimming & Diving Coach of the Year, as the women finished as the runnersup with an 8-1 record, their fourth straight year finishing in the top three.

Multiple Panthers grabbed podium spots across the different events, as Janelle Schulz, Lilly Nesson, Carly Plate, Grace Mayes, Noelle Bryan, Erika Thomas, Mara Freeman, Grace Hudson, Hanna DeGrace, and Skylar Ruggles all managed at least one finish in the top three.

On the men’s side, the Panthers recorded multiple record times throughout the season. Charlie House claimed three freshman records, setting new bars in the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, and 200 freestyle. Hayden Christiansen grabbed the 100 backstroke record, and Jay Jensen set new records in the 500 freestyle and

the 400 individual medley. Both House and Jensen were a part of the recordbreaking 200 freestyle relay team, along with Jackson Ahrens and Benjamin Witt.

The women finished the year at 8-1 overall in dual meets, while the men finished at 6-2, their best record since the 2012-13 season.

The Milwaukee women’s tennis team has been competing in its spring season since late January and currently sits at 6-6 overall with two nonconference matchups on the schedule before starting Horizon League play.

First-year head coach Mark Goldin has his team playing well, especially at home, where the Panthers are 4-2 and have posted wins over programs such as UC Irvine (W, 5-2 March 3) and Bradley (W, 5-2 Feb. 4), while coming up just short of a victory over city-rival Marquette (L, 4-3 Feb. 14).

TENNIS SPORT UPDATE

Individually, Nadiia Konieva is off to an incredible start to the season and now sits at 15-2 overall on the campaign in singles play. She is also 10-1 at No. 2 and had her 10-match winning streak snapped against No. 25 Wisconsin March 16. At 10 in a row, she tied the longest singles victory streak by a Panther since Mayya Perova went for 10 in a row in the spring of 2022.

Laure Razet is second with 10 wins (10-7), while Sara Simonova (9-8) is third. In doubles, Iva Stejskalova stands alone at 14 wins (14-4 overall) and has combined with Emilia Durska to go 9-2 and claim wins six

consecutive matches at one point. Konieva (12-6) is the current runner-up in doubles victories.

Horizon League play opens March 30 at Oakland and the season concludes with the league championship Schwartz Tennis Center at Purdue University from April 26 to April 28.

The Milwaukee track & field program is now midway through their season after wrapping up the indoor portion to close the month of February. At the 2024 Horizon League Indoor Track & Field Championships, the women were crowned league champions, while the men finished as runners-up.

Natalie Block has continued to perform for Milwaukee, earning her third straight Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year award after setting new program records in the 60m hurdles, 300m dash, and 400m dash.

Anelise Egge set the new program record in the mile run and was named Co-Outstanding Performer of the Meet along with Block.

During the season, Zac Schmidt broke the Milwaukee men’s 300m record, and freshman Divine Aniamaka eclipsed a 22-year-old triple jump mark by 3 cm, setting a program record in the event. Tabitha Wechlo broke the MKE Shot Put record on two occasions, and Dominique Thomas broke the 200m record twice.

First-year Panthers Liam Richards and Anna Szepieniec were both named Freshman Field Athlete of the Year, as Richards won the heptathlon at the championship meet and Szepieniec worked her way onto multiple top-ten lists for the Panthers.

Outdoor season begins the last weekend of March, as the Panthers will compete at the Raleigh Relays, Warrior Invitational, and the Redbird Invite.

Q & with AJ A Blubaugh

AJ Blubaugh pitched for the Milwaukee Panthers over parts of three seasons (202022). Throughout his time in the Black & Gold, Blubaugh proved to be a valuable arm for the Milwaukee staff, earning back-to-back Horizon League Reliever of the Year and All-League First Team honors in both 2021 and 2022.

Following his 2022 season, which saw him post a 3-3 record with six saves in 52 2/3 innings, Blubaugh became the 25th Major League Baseball draftee as he was selected in the seventh round by the defending American League Champion Houston Astros.

Blubaugh ascended quickly through the Astros organization, pitching at the Rookie Ball and Single-A levels in 2022, before reaching the High-A and Double-A levels in 2023. Earlier this year, Blubaugh received the call with an invite to Major League Camp with the Astros in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he’ll be competing for a spot on the Major League roster this spring.

Blubaugh would become just the second Milwaukee Panther to reach the Major League level, joining Daulton Varsho, who currently plays for the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Roar Report had the chance to catch up with Blubaugh recently, chatting about his experiences as a Panther, his success in professional baseball, and his goals for the 2024 season.

Roar Report: What were some key moments during your time with the Panthers that helped shape where you are today as a professional baseball player?

AJ Blubaugh: Some key moments that helped shape me into who I am today as a person and as a baseball player would be the people that I was surrounded by every day. My class of teammates, as well as the upperclassmen when I arrived my freshman year really understood the work that it took to become a great ball player.

My roommate, Michael Rodriguez, and I had friendly competitions all year in all aspects of life to push each other every day. I also had an amazing coaching staff that believed in me when a lot of other coaches didn’t and with their support, I was able to become who I am today.

RR: What are some of your favorite memories from college baseball?

AB: Some of my greatest memories didn’t even happen on a baseball field. I really enjoyed 6:00 a.m. workouts with Nick Gilhaus that were usually followed by either a swim workout or a bike ride. I enjoyed long drives with Quinton Morris and seeing if we can sing all kinds of different duets … waking up on weekends and going into the ‘K’ with Jake Novak and biking, also watching football with Dylan Szajkovics and him

yell at his fantasy football players … also putting on as much weight as I could with Marcus Cline because that’s what needed to be done.

If I had to pick a memory on the baseball field, it would be the run we made in the Horizon League Tournament my sophomore year and we came together as a whole team, and it was some of the best baseball that I was a part during my time at Milwaukee.

RR: Just about two full years into your professional career, you have made a quick ascent through the organization and reached AA last year with Corpus Christi. What do you think has been a main contributor to your success?

AB: I believe I can attribute my success to a lot of different reasons, but I believe that the biggest one was trying my best not to get ahead of myself. What I mean by that is that it doesn’t matter what I have planned next week, next year, or even in five years, what matters is that I take care of business of what’s right in-front of me.

In the great words of Grand Master Oogwey (of the Kung Fu Panda films), “The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that is why it is called the present.”

RR: After splitting your time in Minor League Baseball as a starter and reliever, you flourished in the Arizona Fall League this past offseason

with Mesa and had three saves in six outings. Is pitching at the end of games where you feel most comfortable?

AB: I love both starting and closing because both involve pitching. I do feel comfortable throwing at the end of games, but on the other hand I also feel comfortable knowing when I’m going to throw as a starter.

I ran into the same situation in college when I was trying to do both. But I will say that I really like the feeling of starting and knowing that this is my game. There is a lot that I know I can get better at as a starter, so I am excited to continue to develop in that regard.

RR: You’re in your first Major League spring training, when and how did you hear that you were being invited to camp? And what was your reaction?

AB: I was in Milwaukee visiting my girlfriend when I got the call … I had just arrived and what couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes prior and was just sitting down in my friend’s house, I got a call from a random number, I answered, and they let me know the news. I wish I could tell you that I kept my cool and acted like it didn’t faze me, but I was so excited I could feel and hear my heartbeat get faster.

After the phone call ended, I immediately called my parents and told them the news along with a few other people I have in my corner. It was fun celebrating that moment but all it really did was put some more wood on the fire and I was ready to get down to Florida and start working with them.

RR: At the age of 23, you are the third youngest player in Major League camp with the Astros this spring, what are you learning by being around the players and coaches with Major League experience?

AB: I think just hearing some of the older guys talk about how they approach the game day in, and day

out is so rewarding because it really is a profession. I want to be a sponge to anything and everything they have to offer. I feel like every time I move up in the baseball world, I unlock a new level to baseball that I didn’t know existed. I have been focusing most on strengthening my knowledge of the game and letting my body catch up when it is ready.

RR: What is the best career advice you have received since being drafted by the Astros?

AB: The best advice I have received is to not let the outside world influence what you do in and around the game of baseball. There are so many distractions and people who want to see you fail, you just have to keep your head down and keep doing what you do.

I have learned that you need to have a switch … what I mean by that is when I am not on the mound I couldn’t be more of a normal person. I want to be fun, energetic, and easy to be around. But on the other hand, when I step on that mound, I am a different person and I feel like nothing can get in my way.

RR: What are your professional goals for the 2024 season?

AB: My goals are simple; I want to be consistent and approach every day, every game, every inning, every out, and every pitch, with the same calmness and yet same intensity, so that you can’t tell the difference. I want to execute my pitches at a high level which means I want my velocity and my shapes to also be consistent. If I can master the art of consistency, I think the rest of 2024 will take care of itself.

BLOCK NOT DONE YET Natalie

Natalie Block is an eight-time Horizon League champion, holds Milwaukee records in six different events, and among countless other awards, has been named the Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year for the past three seasons in a row. So, how did she get to where she is now?

Block started with a group called Girls on the Run, a local non-profit where teams would train for a 5K race while learning about objective setting, goals, and other small group activities.

By seventh grade, however, she no longer wanted to do the long distance running. “I said, ‘okay, I’m done,” Block remembered. “I started off with the 100 meter dash and the long jump, but switched out of the long jump to focus more on sprints.”

A two-year track athlete at Oak Creek, Block made it to the 300m hurdles state championship as a junior, finishing tenth. Losing her senior season to the COVID-19 pandemic, her next opportunity to compete came as a freshman for the Panthers.

After two fourth-place finishes as a freshman at the 2021 Horizon League Indoor Championships, Block had multiple break-out performances at the 2021

Outdoor Championships. She was named the 2021 Horizon League Outdoor Track Newcomer of the Year, along with earning 2021 Horizon League Track Outstanding Performer after winning both the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles. She also qualified for the NCAA West Preliminary meet in the 400m hurdles, finishing 31st.

Prior to arriving at Milwaukee, Block hadn’t competed in the 60m hurdles or the 100m hurdles, two of her current top events. “I think it was more to my advantage to start them now, with (head coach Andrew) Basler,” she commented. “The knowledge he has and how he was able to coach me in those was so crucial.”

“He knew what I needed... I was able to start with good hurdle technique and use those drills, techniques, and cues that he knows to build a solid foundation and get off on the right foot.”

The 2022 indoor season saw Block improve even more, while also adding the 60m hurdles and pentathlon to her repertoire. At the first meet of the season, Block broke her first program record, running a time of 8.52 seconds and taking second place in the 60mH. Then, in the second meet of the year, Block set the program record in the pentathlon, winning the event

with a score of 3763.

After lowering her 60mH record to 8.40 over the course of the season, Block went into the conference indoor championships as the 2022 Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year. At the championship meet, she won both the pentathlon and the 60mH, earning the award of Indoor Track Outstanding Performer.

Block says the records weren’t on her agenda when she arrived at Milwaukee, but rather came as a bonus from chasing goals of her own.

“With my goals being so high in shooting to get to and compete at that elite level, I believe that the records just came with it. Where I want to go is so high that the records are more just perks that come along with the journey.”

Dealing with lingering injuries, Block competed in just two meets early in the 2022 outdoor season. However, that did not stop her from breaking two more Milwaukee records, this time in the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles. On the same day, Block ran times of 13.66 in the 100mH and 59.94 in the 400mH, both of which still stand as program records today.

The 2023 indoor season saw Block break records yet again,

as she lowered her 60mH mark to 8.33 and set new MKE records in the 300m and 400m with times of 38.67 and 55.30. Her second straight recognition as the Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year preceded the HL Indoor Championship meet where she claimed individual wins in the 60mH and the 400m.

Block was also recognized by the Milwaukee Athletic Department, earning the 2023 MKE Record Breaking Performance Award and the 2023 MKE Female Student Athlete of the Year Award.

Block continued her prominence on the track by breaking her own program records in three different events during the 2024 indoor season. She was able to lower her 60mH record on three occasions, along with the 300m and 400m records once each. After earning conference runner of the week honors four times, Block was named the Alfreeda Goff Indoor Track & Field Women’s Athlete of the Year for the third consecutive time, becoming just the second athlete in Horizon League history to earn the award more than twice.

At the Horizon League Championship meet, Block won individual championships in the 60mH and the 400m, earning

the award of Outstanding Women’s Track Performer of the Meet and helping the Panthers to their tenth indoor championship in program history.

“We have a loaded team headed into the outdoor season, and everyone is super motivated,” she said. “And Coach Basler is definitely at the heart of it. I don’t think I’ve seen a coach that wants it as bad as he does.”

When asked what motivates her the most to keep improving, Block mentioned the desire to “be the best you.”

“When you’re chasing the best version of yourself, there’s no limit,” Block said. “If you’re going to put a period after your name, then that’s that, but I want a comma. I want to keep going.”

Block and the Panthers were voted as the favorite to win the Horizon League in the Outdoor Track & Field Preseason poll and open their season March 28th at the Raleigh Relays. In the same weekend, Milwaukee will also be competing at the Warrior Invitational and the Redbird Invite.

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To Show Up And To Win with gary D’Amato

It was a season that tested Bart Lundy’s coaching ability, not to mention his patience. It was a season filled with more peaks and valleys than the Swiss Alps, more ups and downs than a trampoline convention.

Injuries? Yes, an NFL season’s worth.

Lineup changes? It was like shuffling a deck: 14 players started at least one game for Milwaukee’s men’s basketball team in 2023-24 and there were 19 different starting combinations. No one started all 35 games and only three managed to play in every game.

“(With) the injuries and adversity, it’s one of the toughest years I’ve had as a head coach in all my years,” Lundy said. “It really was like coaching four or five teams with guys leaving and coming back, guys playing out of position. It was a bizarre year.”

Yet, somehow, the Panthers came together down the stretch, winning five of their last six regular-season games and then beating Detroit Mercy, Green Bay and Northern Kentucky in the Barbasol Horizon League Championship to reach the title game.

In a closely contested final that featured nine ties and 10 lead changes, sixth-seeded Milwaukee fell to top-seeded Oakland, 83-76. The score was tied, 70-70, with less than three minutes to play. Despite all they’d gone through in a turbulent, disjointed season, the Panthers came that close to reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m really proud of our guys for the perseverance we showed,” Lundy said. “I am proud of how hard we played at the end and the run that we made. But, you know, two minutes to play and we’re tied at 70. So it’s hard to dismiss that we missed an opportunity.”

There is no denying the disappointment of an oh-soclose call. But the bigger picture reveals more reasons to celebrate than to hang heads. The Panthers finished 20-15 one year after going 22-12 in Lundy’s first season. It’s the first time Milwaukee posted back-to-back 20-win seasons in nearly two decades.

Back in December, few were thinking that a 20-win season was even remotely possible. High expectations evaporated quickly as Milwaukee got off to a rocky 4-7 start. BJ Freeman, the team’s most potent scorer, missed seven of the first 13 games with a broken bone in his back. More injuries followed, some of them freakish in nature.

“Aaron Franklin got a breakaway in a practice and one of our walk-ons tried to run him down and strip the ball and Aaron took a fall and broke his wrist,” Lundy said. “Darius Duffy shattered one of his fingers on his off hand during a game, just on a random hit. BJ broke a vertebra in his back and doesn’t even know when he did it. A lot of strange things.”

On top of all that, Markeith Browning II, one of the team’s best athletes and the third-leading scorer in 202223, was dismissed from the program.

“We really were up against it,” Lundy said. “We had very little confidence as a team. We dismissed Markeith. BJ was out. We had some other guys out. The kid that we recruited that we thought would be our starting point guard (Pierce Spencer / foot) never played a game.

“Around the team, around the office, it was not panic but

it was, hey, we’ve really got to work our way out of this.”

The turning point came, oddly enough, after a pair of losses to Youngstown State and Robert Morris on the road, which dropped Milwaukee’s record to 12-13.

“We go right from Youngstown State to Robert Morris on that trip and we’re 0-4 in the two years I’ve been here,” Lundy said. “Both years, that trip and those losses have flipped a switch for us. I think we looked at each other and said, ‘OK, it’s time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves.’”

The Panthers closed the regular season with victories over Cleveland State, Northern Kentucky, Purdue-Fort Wayne, IUPUI and in-state rival Green Bay, with only an overtime loss to Youngstown State at home preventing a sweep.

“I will say we stayed with what we believed in, which was continue to stack good days, and continue to get up and do today right and to get better each day,” Lundy said. “I thought that helped us to kind of dig our way out and to find a new identity.”

Almost every one of those late-season games was close, which underscored the Panthers’ grit and competitive fire, acquired over a challenging season filled with tough breaks. Then, in the Horizon League semifinals, Milwaukee rallied from a 15-point deficit to beat Northern Kentucky.

How were the Panthers able to finish off so many games that could have gone either way?

“It’s toughness and being connected as a group — them being connected on the floor and them being connected with me,” Lundy said. “And then being tough enough to make the hard plays down the stretch. Being tough enough to make the defensive stop, make the free throw, break the press. All those things are magnified at the end.”

In the championship game, Milwaukee again rallied to take a 62-60 lead, but Oakland’s Trey Townsend, the 2024 Horizon League Player of the Year, proved to be too much. He scored a career-high 38 points and grabbed 11 rebounds on his way to tournament MVP honors.

Milwaukee also lost both regular-season games to Oakland, 100-95 on Jan. 4 and 91-87 in double-overtime on Jan. 27.

“I would say we played them differently each time,” Lundy said. “We tried different things. We tried different pressures. We tried to take the post away and we gave up threes. In the championship game we tried to take the threes away and obviously gave up 38 points to Trey Townsend.”

It was a tough loss, to be sure, but the future is bright.

Milwaukee’s top five scorers and top three rebounders should be back in 2024-25, including Freeman, who was magnificent down the stretch. The slashing 6-foot-6 guard/forward finished as the Panthers’ leading scorer (21.1) and rebounder (6.6) and added a team-high 111 assists.

“He was fantastic,” Lundy said. “The stats speak for themselves but he really willed us in a couple of those late-season games. Once he got rolling there wasn’t much the other team could do.”

Lundy is confident that his team will be hungry in 202425.

“We have a great core,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen with the portal and those things that are swirling around college athletics. But no matter what happens, we’ve got a bunch of guys that now have experience. They’ve had breakthroughs. We broke through to the (conference tournament) semifinals last year. We broke through to the finals this year.

“My sense is this group coming out of this year is not satisfied. We’re not happy about how things finished and ended. Being in that championship environment, it does motivate your guys. And that’s part of the growth of a program. You start to believe that that’s where you deserve to be. And then it perpetuates itself. The older guys teach the young guys. That’s the expectation, right? Not just to show up. It’s to show up and to win.”

Gary D’Amato, a three-time National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association sportswriter of the year in Wisconsin, joined the Milwaukee Panthers as a feature writer for the Roar Report in September 2018.

We have heard all of the sayings:

“Practice makes perfect.” “If you do the work, you get rewarded.”

“Hard work pays off.” “Success is not an accident.”

No player in recent memory has lived those expressions as much as Dominic Ham the past few years. He’s the guy running wind sprints and getting shots up before shootaround even starts. He’s the guy doing push-ups on the sidelines during breaks in the action. He’s the guy shooting on the court after the game is over and the lights are getting turned off practicing his craft.

For Ham, his hard work and persistence paid off in his final season with the Panthers.

It reached an initial high point February 14, 2024. That was the night that Ham made his first start

Earning

at the NCAA Division I level.

He didn’t leave the starting lineup the rest of the way, which is quite the path for the former Panther walk-on who started his time with the program as a team manager.

Most fans of the program are quickly familiar with the last name. Dominic is the son of Darvin Ham, the current head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Darvin first made his name nationally known in college, when he famously shattered a backboard on a slam dunk against North Carolina during the 1996 NCAA Tournament as a member of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. He went on to spend nearly a decade in the National Basketball Association, including three seasons locally with the Milwaukee Bucks.

“I still remember a lot of it – he didn’t finish playing until I was

Earning it

eight or nine years old,” Dominic recalls of his dad’s playing career. “And after that he transitioned into coaching. We went to New Mexico when he was with the Albuquerque Thunderbirds in what was then the ‘D-League’ and is now the ‘G-League’. That’s when he started his coaching career – he went there as a player and then made the move into coaching, starting as an assistant.”

Growing up with a famous dad had its perks. Dominic got to know many of the NBA players that he grew up idolizing.

“All the way up – I still get to (meeting NBA players),” he said. “We were always in the mix growing up, whether my dad was playing or coaching. I always felt like we were meeting all kinds of the guys (NBA stars). I was able to meet pretty much everyone on the list. My favorite was Kobe

Bryant. It was amazing. There was like an aura around him.”

Darvin played for the Bucks, as well as time with five other teams – winning an NBA title in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons.

“It was so great being around the 2004 Pistons team,” Dominic said. “It was cool being around them – they treated us like family so it was nice.”

You would think that growing up in the Ham household, a basketball would automatically be a part of the process. Not so, Dominic stated.

“I was a big football guy in high school and actually signed to play out of high school,” he said. “It wasn’t until right around August of my senior year that I transitioned over to basketball to go to

junior college. I was going to go to NCAA Division II Shorter University and ended up going to junior college at Georgia Highlands, which was in the same city in Rome, Georgia.”

That was where he spent the 2020-21 season, making appearances in 18 games while averaging 3.8 points and 2.4 rebounds a game.

“I think it was everything I needed at the time,” Ham said. “Junior college isn’t anything like we have in DI, it’s a rigorous road for sure. That coaching staff there – Coach Gaffney, JJ Merritt, Ray Savage –that whole group was very helpful to me, honestly.”

But the path was not an easy one.

“I took my first major injury my freshman year at JUCO,” Ham said. “But we were short on guys so they were rushing us to come back. So at the time, we only had seven guys suited up out of 15 on the roster. Short in numbers,

I ended up playing through and had some academic issues … that set me back.”

At that same point in time, his father was making his mark in the coaching world and was on the staff of the Milwaukee Bucks.

“I ended up coming to Milwaukee and staying with my parents for a bit after my dad was coaching with the Bucks,” Ham said.

That was where the connection between Ham and the Panthers was born. Enter Vin Baker, Jr., who also was the son of an NBA dad (Vin Baker, Sr.) who was playing for the Panthers at the time.

“I got in contact with Vin,” Dominic said. “So me and Vin got closer – his dad was working with mine at the Bucks at the same time. That’s how I found out about UWM in the first place. So I started coming to the games and watching Vin and the team play and that’s when I fell in love with it.”

He started to get the itch to get back on the court immediately.

win the NBA title in 2021.

“The championship was beautiful to see – I think we saw the city at its highest,” he recalls. “It was just cool to have that experience and that’s what motivates me now – in your own basketball career trying to bring a championship to a city that has done so much for you.”

Next came the first step in getting back on the court. For Dominic, that meant doing whatever he

had to do to be involved. So he started his Panther career during the 2021-22 campaign – but not as a player … as one of the team managers.

“It was just one of those things,” Ham said. “God brought me to that option and you can just take this opportunity and be a part of the program or choose to be a regular student and I chose to fight for what I truly believed in – that I had the capability to play on the team but first you have to pay your dues. My guys like Billy and Coop (other team managers) taking me in, Mike (Winans), J-New (Jason Newkirk), and everybody showing me the ropes and treating me as one of the guys and I just grew from there.”

One of the bonuses of being a manager at the NCAA Division I level are “manager games”. For those that do not know, managers across the country play in loosely organized games against managers from other programs.

This ‘underground’ league gives managers the opportunity to show off their skills and … for Ham … to continue to improve.

“Those manager games are some hard games,” he said. “That’s what you sign up for because there are so many hidden resources and opportunities you have even as a manager that can put you in the right spot to get to where I am today.”

His hard work and work ethic got noticed and paid off, eventually turning into a walk-on spot with the team during the 2022-23 season.

“I think it comes from everyone I have crossed paths within life,” Ham said of his work ethic. “I draw from everybody. We all have a job to do in life and you want to do that to the best of your ability.”

He was rewarded with appearances in 11 games, scoring

eight points and recording 15 rebounds. He didn’t miss a shot from the free throw line (4-for-4) and scored his first MKE points against Cardinal Stritch. It gave him that much hope for the future.

“It’s just the consistency,” he said of his career path. “Sometimes it’s God telling you to be patient. That’s just waiting your turn and being a good teammate. That is kind of rare to see nowadays but you still have to keep that good energy because it’s all a full circle in life. You get back what you put out. So it’s a stay-ready, be-ready mentality, as soon as Coach calls my name, I need to be ready.”

With a taste of success behind him, Ham was ready for more. He kept working in the off-season. Individual workouts, summer leagues … all in anticipation of his senior year on the court in 202324.

He scored five points in the season opener against Stout and made a couple more appearances before an injury reared its ugly head. It kept Ham off the court. Which eventually led to a longer and longer absence while he was trying to figure out what the problem was.

“It was tough,” Ham said. “Because this year I really sacrificed a lot of things and was all-in this season. To go down with what turned out to be a broken rib was tough, but I knew I had to be there for my team when it was time. And now we’re seeing that and it’s time to make a run.”

He was out from December 3rd to

January 26th, missing 12 games before getting back on the court against Oakland January 27th.

He kept working hard and three games later broke through with what at the time was his best outing to date – playing 16 minutes at Robert Morris Feb. 10, scoring an NCAA-high eight points while making 3-of-4 shots, adding three rebounds.

Little did he know, bigger things were just around the corner.

It happened his next outing, earning the start against Cleveland State Feb. 14, playing 21 minutes.

“It was a situation where Coach Lundy sat me down and talked to me,” Ham said. “But he knew what he was getting when he made that call and I just knew I needed to be ready and do what needs to be done for the team –

whatever that is.”

Fans see Ham flying all over the court – diving for loose balls, hustling on defense – giving it his all. That is by design.

“I want them to see what Milwaukee really is all about –that hard-working blue-collar mentality ... just doing whatever needs to be done to get by,” he said. “That’s what I want them to see – just that energy and passion for the game and for the city.”

His entrance into the starting lineup coincided with something bigger – a 5-1 finish to the regular season that put the Panthers on the right path heading into the postseason.

“I just feel like now we need to finish the job,” he said of the close to the regular season. “Just coming together as a team. I feel like now we are starting to

mesh and we owe each other this opportunity.”

The Panthers came oh-so-close to finishing the job, posting back-to-back upsets as the No. 6 seed against both third-seeded Green Bay and fifth-seeded Northern Kentucky before falling to top-seeded Oakland in the championship by a final score of 83-76.

“It’s going to happen and I truly believe that,” Ham said right before the postseason started – a prediction that nearly came to fruition. “It’s going to take consistency and comradery and coming out here and being that team I know that we can be. Outworking everybody and that’s why I do what I do – you have to lead by example. You can’t ask out of anybody what you won’t do yourself.”

Soft-spoken and grounded, Ham has become a fan favorite in his time in Milwaukee. Despite coming from a family with a famous parent – not too many people get to say that their dad coaches LeBron James – he says it’s his mom and dad that he has to thank for how he goes about things in his life.

“I will give credit to my family for that,” he said. “That is just something that they instilled in us from the jump. Just never feel like you are better than anyone else. We are all human beings –no one is greater than the other –we all look up to God or whoever it may be for that person and we are all equal. You should never feel like you are better, or less than, anyone else.”

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