Milwaukee, WI

Matchups of top teams highlight Milwaukee-area boys hoops takeaways

Published

1 month ago

January 24, 2026

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Matchups of top teams highlight Milwaukee-area boys hoops takeaways

Wisconsin Lutheran defeated Greendale, ending the Panthers’ 12-0 start to the season.
West Allis Central’s Yusef Gray Jr. scored 42 points in a win over Brookfield East after committing to Iowa State.
Brookfield East is without freshman standout Max McMullen due to a lower arm injury.
Milwaukee Lutheran guard Xavier Allen surpassed 1,000 career points in a win over Shorewood.

School closures for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and subsequently Jan. 23 as temperatures dropped put a tighter bookend on the week in boys high school basketball, but there were still some premier matchups in the Milwaukee area.

Among those games that went on as scheduled were two meetings of top-four area teams entering the week, as well as a smattering of other conference and nonconference affairs as well.

Here are takeaways from the week in Milwaukee-area boys high school basketball.

Wisconsin Lutheran knocks down Greendale despite strong start

The No. 4 Greendale Panthers saw a strong 12-0 start to their season come to a screeching halt over the past week-and-a-half with losses to Franklin (72-64 on Jan. 17) and area No. 1 team Wisconsin Lutheran (73-45 on Jan. 20). Greendale coach Ryan Johnsen said the team is still optimistic and eager to improve over the latter half of the season while sitting now at 12-2.

“I think a lot of the teams in the state would take that,” Johnsen said of his team’s record after the loss to Wisco. “Our roster is really well connected. We’ve got great chemistry, kids understand their roles.”

Taking on a new role as top scoring option this year is 6-foot-6 senior guard Zavier Castillo, who has seen his scoring average climb by 15 points from his 11.9 points per game average as a junior. Rather than one area of improvement leading to that increase, Johnsen said he sees steady improvement across the board in ball-handling, shooting, strength and buy-in on defense.

“When your best player sort of sets the tone at [defense], everybody else kind of falls in line,” Johnsen said.

Rounding out a Panthers lineup also featuring 6-2 senior guard Brandon Harper (14.0 ppg) and 6-3 senior guard Tyler Roche (12.5 ppg) are a pair of juniors making the leap to varsity this year in 6-4 guard Korben Pfeifer (5.9 ppg) and 6-foot guard Grady Smith (9.5 ppg). Castillo said the difference for the team this year has been in its selflessness, which he has tried to help set the tone in as well.

“We’ve got to make sure everyone eats for sure, and in practice we’re just doing all the little things to make sure everyone gets better,” Castillo said.

Johnsen also had high praise for the Vikings, who moved into Max Preps’ national top 10 ranked teams this past week.

“They’re so talented, they’re so well-coached, they’re so long and play so well as a team,” Johnsen said. “No matter what five guys they have on the court, they’re all five difficult to guard. Obviously they have the high, high-level guys, but some of the guys that you don’t think about, they’re still really, really good basketball players. [Riley] Walz knocked down some big shots. I think [Tristan] Hahn hit some big shots. They’re a really strong team. I know Zens and the Knueppels get a lot of notoriety, but they got a special group there. They’re well-coached, it’s just really hard to defend.”

Highlights from West Allis Central’s 91-56 win over Brookfield East

Highlights from West Allis Central’s 91-56 win over Brookfield East on Jan. 22, 2026, led by Iowa State recruit Yusef Gray Jr.

Yusef Gray Jr. talks Iowa State commitment after 42 points in win

Two days after Wisconsin Lutheran and Greendale held their battle of top area teams, No. 2 West Allis Central (12-1) and No. 3 Brookfield East (13-1) met in a similarly high-stakes matchup.

An ultimately short-handed Spartans squad was routed at home, 91-56, as Iowa State recruit Yusef Gray Jr. scored 42 points to lead a runaway victory. Coach David Mlachnik lauded Gray’s improvement through his high school career leading up to what has been a stellar senior campaign.

“Ball-handling, playmaking, shooting, he always had that stuff, but he just continues his work every day. He puts a ton of time in, plus if you take a look at body strength, he put a lot of time in the weight room and that’s paying off,” Mlachnik said. “Just a great kid that just works his tail off.”

An attendee of the Jan. 22 game was already sporting a “Gray Jr.” Iowa State No. 3 jersey that Yusef signed after the game. Gray admitted it was not his first as a few relatives and teammates have been taken care of, but it was nevertheless an exciting sign of the things to come.

“It’s a blessing. Just not looking too far ahead. I’ve got a long season ahead, but it’s most definitely a blessing,” Gray said. “Seeing all these people showing me love and stuff I prayed for, and I just want to give all glory to God.”

The 6-5 West Allis Central guard is far from the first local product to choose Iowa State in recent years, as coach T.J. Otzelberger and his staff have made a point of seeking out recruits in the same metro area Otzelberger once roamed as a student at St. Thomas More. Gray said it is an intentional and genuine approach that has attracted himself among other recent Wisconsin signees like Pewaukee’s Milan Momcilovic, Milwaukee Academy of Science’s Jamarion Batemon, Brookfield Central’s Anthony Rise as well as Oshkosh North’s Xzavion Mitchell.

“They’re doing a really good job at that, and it’s ultimately working,” Gray said.

The Bulldogs are collectively focused on the task ahead, however, and have a senior-heavy lineup acting with urgency as they have largely rolled through their competition all year long.

“We’re going into every game like it’s a state championship game, not looking at teams no different, just giving our all every game,” Gray said.

Brookfield East without top freshman entering critical conference stretch

One development that put the Spartans at a disadvantage headed into the loss to West Allis Central was an apparent right lower arm injury to breakout freshman Max McMullen. The 6-foot guard was seen with a cast on his right wrist on Jan. 22 for an undisclosed injury that coach Joe Rux said will keep him out for “a little bit,” though he anticipates McMullen will return this season.

In addition to missing McMullen’s scoring (18.3 ppg), Rux said the freshman’s ability as a facilitator was badly missed against West Allis Central.

“I don’t want to put him in Yusef’s category because Yusef is a senior and he’s really good. Max is going to be really good obviously, but very similar in terms of where Yusef is at right now. They’re very similar in finding solutions. They’re not, ‘I’m only going to score’ you know. ‘I’ll score if that’s the right solution,’ ” Rux said. “We’re trying to figure it out right now and trying to figure out who can take the reins.”

Seeing increased minutes in McMullen’s stead were sophomore 6-1 guard Davian White and senior 6-foot guard Owen Counsell, while starting senior 5-9 guard Ronje Horton Jr. saw increased duties facilitating from the perimeter. While admitting it had been a short turnaround for his team to find solutions without that second guard adept at putting pressure on opposing defenses, Rux was candid in his assessment of his team’s response Jan. 22.

“We didn’t respond. That’s how we responded,” Rux said. “Obviously WAC is really good, so not taking anything away from them by any stretch. Yusef Gray is – if not the best player in the state – I don’t know who is.”

With or without McMullen for the foreseeable future, Rux’s immediate takeaways from the loss were his team needed to compete, box out and defend at higher levels.

“There’s a lot to learn from this game about who we not only are when Max is here and where we had to get better then, but when Max is gone. Maybe some of those errors [were] masked a little bit, now they’re glaring,” Rux said. “Max will come back at some point, obviously our offense will look a little bit more like it has, but that’s not an excuse. Giving up 90 points is not acceptable whether it’s WAC or Brook Central or whoever it might be.”

The Spartans entered Jan. 24 with a half-game lead in a competitive Greater Metro Conference race (6-1), but know there is work to be done quickly to fend off the likes of Germantown (6-2), Brookfield Central (6-2), Wauwatosa West (4-3) and Menomonee Falls (4-4).

Xavier Allen hits career scoring milestone

Milwaukee Lutheran 6-foot guard Xavier Allen reached 1,000 career points while scoring 25 in an 80-75 win over Shorewood on Jan. 21. The senior is averaging 25.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game this year for the Red Knights (9-4), who ended the week sitting a game back of West Allis Central in second in the Woodland East Conference.

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Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee oversight body asks for more police pursuit policy changes

Published

35 minutes ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

Milwaukee oversight body asks for more police pursuit policy changes

The Fire and Police Commission is mulling a recommendation the Milwaukee Police Department amend its police chase policy and restrict chases for reckless driving.
The current recommendation draft calls for a ban on chases for reckless driving after an attempted traffic stop. That will now move to a committee for further changes.
The draft recommendation comes after department modified the policy to remove speeding as a sole justification for chases. Prior, speeding was allowed to be considered when evaluating reckless driving

A Milwaukee oversight body is pushing for further restrictions on how the city’s police decide to chase vehicles, but isn’t ready to move those forward yet.

At its March 5 meeting, the city’s Fire and Police Commission mulled a recommendation the Milwaukee Police Department no longer chase drivers for reckless driving after an attempted traffic stop and stop other chases for reckless driving if it raises danger to the public. The department’s pursuit policy has been a point of contention for years and has come under intense scrutiny after nine people died from police chase crashes in 2025.

But that recommendation was tabled and sent to commission committee for further discussion, after concerns it needed to be further tweaked and receive more police department input.

“I’m trying to find incremental changes we can make to reduce chases,” said Commissioner Bree Spencer, who sponsored the recommendation.

Spencer said she was hesitant to push for policy changes that were too sweeping or too permissive. She said that had happened in years past, when pursuits were heavily restricted in 2010 and then later opened up in 2017 in response to reckless driving, following a then-Fire and Police Commission order.

As has become the norm at the commission’s meetings, a lengthy public comment period was held where some were critical of the proposed changes. Some called for dashcam footage of pursuit-related deaths to be released, as policy requires in officer shootings, and for the city’s costs of police chase-related lawsuits to be publicized.

“Police chases do not keep our community safe,” Angela Lang, the co-executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Change, said during public comment.

The Fire and Police Commission’s proposed recommendation comes after the department voluntarily removed speeding as a permissible reason to chase someone who is recklessly driving. However, that move was met coldly by members of the public and the commission, which is the oversight body for the department, who said it didn’t go far enough.

Generally, department policy considers pursuits “justified” under six circumstances, among those being when an occupant is involved in a violent felony.

Milwaukee Assistant Chief Craig Sarnow said the department was content with its previous change, when commissioners asked him for feedback on the proposed recommendation.

Both the Fire and Police Commission’s drafted recommendation and police department’s change focus on reckless driving chases. Those make up an overwhelming amount of all chases that officers in Milwaukee make – with officers citing reckless driving as the initiating reason in 742 of the 970 chases in 2025, according to police data.

The Fire and Police Commission’s recommendation is also the first time the body has exercised that power since state legislation, 2023 Wisconsin Act 12, was passed. Before that legislation was passed, the commission held the ability to outright change police department policy, but the law shifted that to the city’s Common Council.

Some have called for the Fire and Police Commission to more aggressively issue recommendations like these.

The recommendation will now move to the commission’s Oversight and Accountability Committee. The decision was made after commissioners said they sought more time to tweak the language and for police to provide input.

License plate reading camera use scrutinized

The department’s use of license plate reading cameras, a system known as Flock, came under scrutiny from many attendees at the meeting as well, who called for the city to ban it. Many noted the recent criminal charges brought against Josue Ayala, an officer who prosecutors say improperly used the system to track a former partner and another person.

Ayala resigned and is facing a misdemeanor charge of attempted misconduct in public office. Ayala had previously faced claims of lying and excessive force but was not placed on a Milwaukee County District Attorney’s list of officers with a history of dishonesty, bias or integrity concerns until recently.

That was despite, in 2022, a federal public defender issuing a complaint against Ayala, saying he exaggerated so much in his testimony and reports that it almost seemed “like a compulsion.”

Milwaukee police officials like Heather Hough, the department’s chief of staff, said they were never made aware of that previous concern against Ayala.

“Had we received the information from defense counsel about these concerns they would have been investigated,” she said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.

But that goes against the role of the defense bar, outside experts and defense attorneys locally told the Journal Sentinel. Prosecutors have the ethical duty to share potential Brady material and serve the public, whereas defense attorneys’ obligation is to their client.

Milwaukee police began using Flock cameras in 2022. MPD has a $182,900 contract with Flock for the use of the technology. That contract is active through January 2027 and passed without requiring approval from member of the city’s Common Council, a point criticized by attendees.

The scrutiny against Flock came despite it not being on the meeting’s agenda. Attendees held signs that said things like “GET THE FLOCK OUTTA HERE” and called for the city to be “de-Flocked.”

David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com.

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Milwaukee, WI

Illegal dumping plagues closed Milwaukee Pick ‘n Save

Published

13 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Illegal dumping plagues closed Milwaukee Pick ‘n Save

Illegal dumping plagues closed Pick ‘n Save

Neighbors say since a Milwaukee Pick ‘n Save at 35th and North closed in 2025, the parking lot has been filling up, but not with cars or people. It has been attracting illegal dumpers.

MILWAUKEE – Neighbors say since the Milwaukee Pick ‘n Save at 35th and North closed in 2025, the parking lot has been filling up, but not with cars or people. It has been attracting illegal dumpers.

Trash piling up

What we know:

There are old mattresses and furniture in the parking lot. There are piles of garbage at the entrance of the old grocery store. Behind the building, there are tires, more mattresses and more trash.

Illegal dumping at former grocery store near 35th and North, Milwaukee

The Pick ‘n Save stores closed in July 2025. Since then, the building has sat empty.

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FOX6 News was contacted by a man who manages senior and family housing in the area. He said in the last couple of months, he has noticed the stile turn into a place for illegal dumping. The man said he was so fed up, he called the office of Milwaukee Alderman Russell Stamper about the problem. The man said the whole site is an eyesore, and something needs to change.

Illegal dumping at former grocery store near 35th and North, Milwaukee

Change sought

What they’re saying:

“As the snow melts, it’s full of garbage. People are dumping furniture on it, tires,” said Jeffrey Sessions, who manages nearby property. “If you drive around it, it’s garbage everywhere. It’s unsightly for the neighborhood, and it’s probably going to create rats and mice problems.”

FOX6 News reached out to the Department of Neighborhood Services. Officials said the dumping has not been reported. They said the department’s commercial team will now be made aware of the issue.

Illegal dumping at former grocery store near 35th and North, Milwaukee

“It makes the whole neighborhood look like garbage, like nobody’s taking care of anything around here,” Sessions said. “It’s a detriment, it’s unsightly, and it needs to be addressed.”

Illegal dumpers could face fines

Dig deeper:

If the dumpers are caught on camera, they could face fines.

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The owner of the property may also be ordered to clean it up.

Illegal dumping at former grocery store near 35th and North, Milwaukee

The Source: Information in this post was provided by a person who owns property near the former grocery store, as well as Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services.

Crime and Public SafetyMilwaukeeNews

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Milwaukee, WI

Things to do in the Milwaukee area this weekend, including Sports Show

Published

1 day ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Things to do in the Milwaukee area this weekend, including Sports Show

Travel to Ireland, learn how to catch a fish, visit wildlife at the zoo, and see costumed characters this weekend in Milwaukee.

Anime Milwaukee

The 2026 “Magical Academy” themed animation convention comes to the Baird Center, 400 W. Wisconsin Ave., and Hilton Milwaukee City Center March 6-8. The weekend features Japanese industry guests and cultural experts, artists and official merchandise, gaming, music, dance, manga, cosplay, anime and Asian fashion. New this year is the Nocturna Anime Bar with a lounge and specialty drinks, including nonalcoholic beverages. Exhibit hall hours are 1 to 8 p.m. March 6, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 7 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 8. Full weekend access is $100; single day access is $50-$75. animemilwaukee.org

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show

The 85th year of the Sports Show is at State Fair Park’s Wisconsin Exposition Center, 8200 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis, from noon to 7 p.m. March 6, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 7 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 8. Along with outdoor exhibitors, see what’s swimming in the trout pond, watch the lumberjack show and the fastest retriever race, or catch the archery and air rifle tournaments. General admission tickets at the door are $15; youth tickets (ages 6-14) are $6. In honor of Women’s Day on March 8, all women receive $10 admission at the door. Check out the full schedule at jssportsshow.com.

Gardens & Gears: Steampunk Faire

Celebrate the industrial age at the Gardens & Gears art fair from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 7 at the Mitchell Park Domes, 524 S. Layton Blvd. The immersive garden event features creators, costumes and live entertainment, with gears, goggles and handcrafted mechanical curiosities on display in the gardens. Domes admission required. mitchellparkdomes.com

Milwaukee County Zoo Family Free Day

Everyone receives free admission at the Milwaukee County Zoo, 10001 W. Blue Mound Road, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 7. See the red pandas in their outdoor habitat, lions, penguins and more. Parking and regular attraction fees still apply. milwaukeezoo.org

Irish Family Day

Travel to the Irish countryside during “Passport to Ireland” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 8 at the CelticMKE Center, 1532 N. Wauwatosa Ave., Wauwatosa. With Irish dance, arts, crafts and storytelling, each county will be featured with an activity that celebrates Irish culture, history and traditions. Buy one, get one free Irish Fest tickets will be available to purchase, with lunch, beverages and snacks served in the Celtic Café. Admission is $10 at the door. celticmke.com

What’s new in Milwaukee-area theaters this weekend

Marcus Theatres: See a marathon of the 2026 Best Picture nominees at select theater locations. Day one of the marathon is March 7 and features “Sentimental Value,” “F1: The Movie,” “The Secret Agent,” “Bugonia,” and “Sinners.” The marathon resumes March 14 with a new set of films. Visit marcustheatres.com.

Milwaukee Film: Women’s History Month programming features the action films of Michelle Yeoh. See her Oscar-winning performance in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” screening at 6 p.m. March 6 at the Oriental Theatre.

“Hoppers”: A robotic animal with a human mind helps real animals thwart a plot to destroy their habitat in this Disney and Pixar feature film. See it at AMC Mayfair Mall; Avalon Theater; Marcus Theatres’ BistroPlex Southridge, Hillside, Majestic, Menomonee Falls, Movie Tavern Brookfield Square, North Shore, Ridge, South Shore cinemas; Rosebud Cinema.

“The Bride!”: A lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask a scientist (Annette Bening) to create a companion. See it at AMC Mayfair Mall; Marcus Theatres’ BistroPlex Southridge, Hillside, Majestic, Menomonee Falls, Movie Tavern Brookfield Square, North Shore, Ridge, South Shore cinemas.

“Protector”: A veteran war hero (Milla Jovovich) must use the violent skills she thought she left behind to save her daughter. See it at Marcus Theatres’ BistroPlex Southridge, Hillside, Majestic, Menomonee Falls, Movie Tavern Brookfield Square, North Shore, Ridge, South Shore cinemas.

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