Back in 2020-21, Milwaukee set an NCAA Division I record – for women or men – as the Panthers collectively hit 83.8 percent of their free throws on the way to a Horizon League regular season championship.
Measured to that standard, Cleveland State was the best free throw shooting team in history, at least for one Saturday afternoon in UWM’s Klotsche Center, given that the Vikings went 28-for-29 (96.6 percent) from the charity stripe in a come-from-behind 89-81 win over Milwaukee to improve to 18-5 (9-3 Horizon League).
Jordana Reisma, a 69 percent free throw shooter, was one of the lead contributors with a 9-for-9 effort, while Destiny Leo, Sara Guerreiro, Filippa Goula, and Mya Moore each earned one perfect trip to the line.
“We actually did practice free throws for quite a while at the end [of practice on Friday], longer than what we probably normally do, but players just gotta step up there and make plays,” CSU head coach Chris Kielsmeier said.
Mickayla Perdue was responsible for the only miss, as her first attempt after being fouled with 1:09 left in the game, and the Vikings ahead 86-75, rimmed out.
“It was funny to give Micky a little jab there – Micky, you’ve gotta make your free throws,” Kielsmeier joked.
As the coach’s barb implied, Perdue can certainly be forgiven for that inconsequential error. After all, she made her first ten tries, 40 percent of CSU’s 25-for-25 start at the line, representing a good chunk of her seventh career 30-point game.
Just about all of her 12 total attempts began with the Springfield, OH native picking herself off of the floor and checking for damage to her 5-7 frame. And most of those tumbles resulted from drives to the basket, though three fourth quarter free throws followed Perdue getting decked behind the three-point line by Milwaukee’s Kacee Baumhower.
“I’ve kind of challenged the entire program that we’ve gotta get back to being more physical,” Kielsmeier said. “You’ve gotta attack that basket with some force, you’ve gotta be not afraid to be put to the ground, because when you attack it with some force, you’re probably going to end up on the ground. You take one hit like that, it doesn’t feel good, no matter what your age.”
Free throws and bruises aren’t necessarily the most interesting ways to talk about a game, though they were necessary for a Cleveland State team battling through an illness winding its way through the roster, the most tiring stages of the always-brutal annual trip to Wisconsin to play Green Bay and Milwaukee, and a relentless Panthers team that began the contest at a blazing pace.
Milwaukee scored 26 points in the opening quarter alone, eight of those by Anna Lutz, who fired home two of her team’s five three-pointers during the frame. As a whole, UWM began 10-for-19 from the floor, forcing Kielsmeier out of his familiar matchup zone defense for the first of several times during the contest.
“When teams come out and shoot as well as they did at the beginning of the game, you’ve gotta try to get them out of their comfort zone,” he said. “Maybe I should’ve went man-to-man earlier. But they hit some tough shots, and I thought Milwaukee played great. We obviously had to play exceptional offensively to be able to beat them.”
To his point, CSU trailed for nearly the entire first half, but always seemed to find just enough offense to keep pace with their sharpshooting hosts. Perdue carried a lot of that weight with 18 first-half points, including a three-point play late in the second quarter – involving possibly her hardest fall of the game – that proved crucial to the Vikings pulling even at 44-44 by halftime.
Moore, a Milwaukee native, scored all eight of her points in the first half. Meanwhile, Leo buried the first two of her four threes, on the way to 16 points, while Grace Ellis provided a tangible spark, similar to her work against IU Indianapolis two weeks ago, finishing with five points and seven rebounds.
After struggling for a lot of the opening 20 minutes, Reisma, like Moore, a local product, surged after halftime and helped power a 10-0 third quarter run that gave the Vikings the lead for good. Her nine free throws represented more than half of her 17 points, and also indicated another of her key contributions: saddling Lutz with foul trouble, most of why the Panthers star only managed six additional points after her hot start.
“She got going in the second half,” Kielsmeier said of his starting post player. “She was pretty disappointed at halftime with some of the execution and a couple defensive mistakes. She stepped up huge when we had to have her.”
“That’s what you love from experienced players. No matter how well you’ve played this year, it doesn’t mean you’re going to play well the next game.”
The rejuvenated defense, along with plenty of bruises and free throws, and the occasional bomb from Perdue or Leo, ballooned the Vikings’ lead to 16 deep into the fourth quarter before Milwaukee rallied to close half of that gap in the final minutes. Baumhower’s team-high 21 points (15 of those coming from five three-pointers) were central to UWM’s late efforts.
For Kielsmeier, however, playing in Milwaukee is very much a case of “winning ugly is winning.”
“It just seems like every time we play here, it just goes right down to the end,” he said. “Even if we’ve got a little bit of a lead, they’re going to make a huge run at you. They’re a really prideful program, and they’re never going to quit.”
“It is really hard to win here, and I’m really proud of how our players found a way to get this done.”
