milwaukee, wis. - despite 23 points from senior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.), the visiting golden bears were unable to spoil the university of wisconsin-milwaukee's season opener in an 89-73 decision at us cellular arena on friday evening. The game for concordia university was their final exhibition, a game they could afford to lose, while division i uw-milwaukee won their season opener at home. box score
heiman, who hails from a town roughly an hour away from the milwaukee area, was flanked by family and friends at the arena while teammate matt hackl (jr., f, seymour, wis.) is also from the state.
it was a solid performance by one of concordia's all-time scoring leaders as he led all scorers with 23 points, shooting 8-14 from the floor, 3-6 from three-point range and 4-5 at the line. He also collected six rebounds in 33 minutes of action. Hackl's homecoming was not as productive with eight scoreless minutes (one three-point attempt) and a rebound.
"concordia came in tough, it was good to see heiman come into wisconsin and play well with all of his family and friends here," commented uw-milwaukee head coach rob jeter. "other than their high field goal percentage and the three-point shooting by the other team, overall, not bad," he concluded on the panther's effort in the opener.
concordia did shoot the ball well. In the first half, the golden bears came out hungry for the upset, hitting 16-28 (.571) from the floor and led 33-31 with 7:05 to play in the half.
but in a high scoring half, it was uw-milwaukee led 48-41 at the break with heiman pouring in 13 in the first 20 minutes.
in the second half, uw-milwaukee pulled away, opening up a 19 point lead down the stretch before a cu rally pulled the deficit to 13, 83-70 with 1:39 remaining. But cu wouldn't get any closer as the panthers closed out the competition.
junior guard courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) was effective off the bench by converting all but one of his six shots off the bench for 14 points while senior guard sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) was the only other golden bear in double-figures with 11 points. Ricks also added three assists and three steals.
for the game, concordia shot 51.8% from the floor while converting 6-13 from three-point range (.462).
the panthers were led by ricky franklin's 21 points, six rebounds and four assists while james eayrs had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
franklin admitted the golden bears disrupted the panthers in their opener, "i think we need to clean up some things on the defensive end, boxing out, getting on loose balls..."
concordia finished their exhibition season with a split, defeating division iii st. John's at home before tonight's loss at division i wisconsin-milwaukee.
they open the regular season at home next saturday, november 21 at gangelhoff center with a 3:00 scheduled tip-off. The game time is subject to change with the potential for the volleyball team to host the ncaa regional. Official schedule changes will be released on sunday with the ncaa's announcement of the volleyball tournament sites and times.
