“I need the new commissioner of the Horizon League to explain to me what a technical foul is when I don’t leave the box, I don’t curse, I’m not demonstrative,” Gottlieb said. “There was nothing, nothing that should have been called a technical foul. I know when I earn one. I did not earn one. The CJ play, we’re up [four] points, that dramatically changed the [trajectory] of the game.”

Postgame tirades aside, the Panthers had to overcome a huge night from Green Bay’s Marcus Hall to do so, as the junior from Schofield, Wisconsin, had 32 points and seven rebounds. 

Central to Milwaukee’s efforts in doing so: free throws and Chandler Jackson, who scored 23 points.

Twenty-four of the Panthers’ free throws came in the second half, and they hit 22 of them – despite being one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the country at 68.5% entering the day. 

Milwaukee led for only 1 minute, 53 seconds in total. 

After cutting the lead to one three times prior in the final minutes, the Panthers took the lead with 69 seconds left when Esyah Pippa-White was fouled going for a defensive rebound and hit a pair of free throws.

On the other end, Hall corralled his own miss and laid it back up with 45 seconds left to put the Phoenix up 72-71.

But Amar Augillard wisely drove to the basket on the other end, where he drew a foul much to Gottlieb’s chagrin and hit Milwaukee’s 19th and 20th free throws of the half. 

“Our end, [if] you don’t want to call a foul, he drove into traffic, whatever,” the Phoenix second-year coach and former radio host said. “It’s the exact same play as the other end. Could not be more similar. And yet every time they drove in there it was a foul, and every time we did it was a miss.”

Milwaukee shot 19 more free throws than Green Bay despite drawing only five more fouls. 

Jackson went 8 for 8 from the stripe as he finished two points shy of his career-high of 25 points, which he set in Milwaukee’s most recent game, Feb. 10 at IU Indy. 

Initially thought of as a likely redshirt candidate, Jackson has become arguably the heavily injured Panthers’ most-consistent scorer of late. He’s averaging 14.1 points over his past eight games.

“To see Chandler from June to where he is now, he’s just a different guy, different player,” Lundy said. “When we inserted Chandler, we really inserted him for his communication. He helps everyone get better defensively. That’s what got him the opportunity and everything has grown from that. It wasn’t like he was in practice scoring at will on everyone. He talked. He communicated. He cared.”