How good was Rob Jeter feeling after his UWM Panthers knocked off Detroit, 55-53, Saturday night at the U.S. Cellular Arena?
Jeter, who usually opens his post-game press conference with some sort of quip or one-liner, was at a loss for words.
"I wish I had something clever to say about this one," Jeter said.
It wasn't that long ago when things looked pretty bleak for the third-year coach and his squad.
Prior to the first game of the season, the Panthers' best player, Avery Johnson, was kicked off the team for disciplinary issues. A lack of offensive ability and defensive effort put the Panthers at 3-7 in mid-December. Jeter was faced with more problems when leading scorer Torre Johnson was arrested for assault and dropped from the team. Another player, Roman Gentry, returned to his home in Iowa for personal reasons.
College basketball's feel-good story of 2005 was suddenly a program in disarray. Jeter, whether publicly or not, was on the hot seat. He'd lost his team, many said. The Panthers were playing selfish, uninspired basketball.
Things looked even worse when a pair of freshman, Tim Flowers and Kevin Johnson, found themselves on the bench and in Jeter's doghouse. They have sat out the last four games.
Then a funny thing happened. The short-handed Panthers pulled out a three-point victory against Central Michigan. They went to Wyoming and returned with a 14-point victory and followed that up by handing defending Horizon League Champion Wright State a 75-64 loss, snapping the Raiders' five-game winning streak in the process.
Trailing a 3-10 (0-3 Horizon League) Detroit squad by 14 with 6:43 left to play Saturday night, you couldn't have blamed the Panthers for running out of steam. The Titans' 2-3 zone defensive scheme had held what had been a red-hot UWM offensive to a season-low 28 percent shooting percentage up to that point.
For the Panthers of old, the game would have pretty much been over. But Jeter's patchwork lineup began to hustle for loose balls, create opportunities and force turnovers off the press and it suddenly found itself back in the game.
It was that hustle and defensive awareness that led to Ricky Franklin coming up with a clutch jump-ball with 25 seconds to play. It was that willingness to buy into Jeter's system that led to Paige Paulsen -- who was shooting 3-for-9 for the night -- to hit a 25-footer that gave the Panthers a two-point lead with just two seconds to play.
It should come as no surprise then that Jeter and his team headed over to a winter break-depleted student section to thank and celebrate with their fans. Beating a team like Detroit wouldn't normally be an impetus for such jocularity, but this was well-deserved and well-earned.
But at the same time, the Panthers find themselves with a clean slate: 7-7 overall and 2-2 in an up-for-grabs Horizon League race. Regular seasons, especially at the mid-major level, are a prelude to the conference tournament season where it's not the best team that wins, but more often than not the hottest team.
Dreaming of March Madness is a dangerous practice for a team that's been through as much turmoil and is as unsettled as the Panthers, but still ... to have a glimmer of hope in light of everything that's gone done is an accomplishment in it's own right.
Jeter doesn't have the players he thought he would when the season got underway. His offense is going to be a work in progress. Minutes are going to go to the guys that show the most heart and make the most of their opportunities, and so far, it's working.
Call it addition by subtraction. Call it coming together as a team. Call it anything you want, but just like that, Jeter and UWM find themselves right in the thick of the Horizon League race.
