MILWAUKEE – NCAA Division I Wisconsin-Milwaukee held off a late second half charge by Southwest Minnesota State to earn a 71-65 victory in the season opener for both teams on Saturday.

UWM, which won the Horizon League and advanced to the NIT last season, held a 17-2 advantage in second chance points, grabbing 16 offensive rebounds and also connected on nine 3-point field goals.

Jordan Miller led SMSU with 16 points, a career-high 11 rebounds and nine assists, while Nick Smith scored a career-high 13 points with seven rebounds.

Casey Sussenguth scored nine points and grabbed four rebounds for SMSU with Matt Zager chipping in with 10 points.

James Haarsma, playing his first game for UWM after transferring from Evansville, scored nine points and grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds.  Ja'Rob McCallum and Ryan Allen each led the Panthers with 16 points.

SMSU held a lead for much of the game's first 10 minutes, before UWM took its first lead at 15-13 with nine minutes and 16 seconds remaining in the first half.

Sussenguth scored a field goal for SMSU with 5:02 left in the half to trim the UWM lead to 23-21, but SMSU would fail to score a field goal the remainder of the half, and the Panthers took advantage to build a 33-24 halftime lead.

Both teams shot poorly in the opening half, with SMSU connecting on just 28 percent of its field goals, while UWM shot 28.6 percent.

UWM began the second half on a 13-6 run to take a 46-30 lead with 16:38 on the clock, before SMSU slowly chipped into the deficit.

SMSU trailed 58-45 with 8:48 remaining, before a Miller 3-pointer, a field goal by Sussenguth and a free throw by Miller trimmed the UWM lead to 58-51 with five minutes left.

UWM extended the lead to nine moments later, before SMSU cut deeper into the lead with Smith completing a 3-point play to make the score 62-58 with 2:08 remaining in the game.

Following a UWM turnover, SMSU had a chance to cut the lead one possession, but a missed goal and defensive rebound by the Panthers with just over a minute left in the game, was as close as the Mustangs would come.

UWM made nine of 10 free throws in the game's final 56 seconds to seal the victory.

SMSU finished the game shooting 43 percent (22 of 51) from the field, including 3 of 12 from 3-point range.  UWM shot 35 percent (20 of 57) from the field and connected on nine of 22 3-pointers. 

Both teams finished with nine turnovers.

Southwest Minnesota State will now have to wait 13 days before continuing non-conference action on Friday, Nov. 25, taking on Michigan Tech at the Bemidji State Classic