Wisconsin-Milwaukee Defeats Indiana State, 71-59
Nov 30, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 30, 2002
NEW ORLEANS - Wisconsin-Milwaukee used the hot hand of Clay Tucker to take a five-point halftime lead and held off Indiana State in the second half to claim a 71-59 lead in the University Hoops Classic in Tulane's Fogelman Arena Saturday. Despite the loss, Indiana State advanced to the championship game of the tournament on Sunday while UW-Milwaukee will play in the fifth-place game and Southeast Missouri State in the third place contest.
Tucker scored 16 of his game-high 18 points in the first half to lead UW-Milwaukee, which improved to 2-2 with the win. Brian Giesen and Marcus Howard led Indiana State with 14 points each as Indiana State fell to 2-2 on the season after the loss.
Indiana State led for most of the first half before a 9-0 run by the Panthers, as Tucker hit three straight three pointers to give UWM a 33-27 lead two minutes before the half.
Howard hit one of his three three-pointers to start the second half as ISU closed the gap to two and pulled to within one point a minute later on a layup by Howard. But UW-Milwaukee quickly extended the lead to 10 and then to 14 by the midway point of the second half. Indiana State pulled to within seven points at 59-66 with 3:35 remaining but critical turnovers down the stretch ended their comeback chances.
ISU committed 20 turnovers in the game and lost despite collecting more rebounds (34-31) and hitting more free throws (13-8) than the Panthers.
In addition to Tucker's 18, Dylan Page had 12 points for Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Each team in that half of the six-team bracket finished with 1-1 record and placement in Sunday's final games were determined by overall point differential.
