2024 was one to remember for Green Bay Phoenix fans, for better or worse. From a late offseason coaching change that lead to the hiring of Doug Gottlieb, to the leading scorer in the nation, a 10-game losing streak, including falling to a Division II team, and to cap it all off, a time change and power issues at both the Resch Center and Kress Center.
Football is king in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The NFL moved the Packers vs. Vikings to a 3:25pm CT kickoff, so the Phoenix made the announcement to Sunday’s game against Purdue Fort Wayne tipoff from 4pm to 1pm so fans could watch both teams, if they so chose. Unfortunately, ongoing power issues at the Resch Center pushed tipoff time back several times, initially to 1:20, before the decision was made to move across town to campus, and play in the Kress Center, which hosted a high school basketball event the last two days.
Green Bay was able to open up on a 5-0 lead before the Mastodons, who came into the game as heavy favorites, and seemed unphased by the venue change, answered back to open up a double digit lead as the game approached the under 12 minute media timeout. Near the 10 minute mark in the half, CJ O’Hara made a layup to cut the lead back to 8, and then split a pair of free throws on the ensuing possession to make it a seven-point Purdue Fort Wayne lead. From there, it was all Mastodons, who went into the halftime break with a 44-24 lead.
Through the 2024-25 season, Green Bay has struggled mightily in the 2nd half. One of the few bright spots in Sunday’s game though, was that the Phoenix seemed to avoid the drastic slide in the middle part of the half in the loss. While the game may have never been in doubt, as the Mastodons were actually able to balloon the lead up to as high as 26, Green Bay did keep pace with Purdue Fort Wayne, outscoring the Mastodons 43-39 in the second half, en route to a 83-67 loss.
Preston Ruedinger led scoring for Green Bay with 12 points, shooting 5-6 from the floor, and 2-3 from behind the arc. Ryan Wade was the lone other Green Bay player with a double digit point total, coming off the bench and finishing with 11 points. Green Bay also out-rebounded Purdue Fort Wayne, by a margin of 30-26, with Ruedinger grabbing a game high 7 boards to lead the way.
Green Bay will turn the calendar into 2025 before it plays again, when the Phoenix will travel to the Nutter Center to play Wright State on January 2nd, with tipoff set for 6 PM CT.
