UWM vs. Cardinal Stritch: Opening the Season With My Old Friends, The Panthers

Ah, it’s finally here. I suppose I sort of kicked off basketball season a few weeks back on the opening evening of practice, but last night was my first opportunity to go to something resembling a game. Both Wisconsin (vs. Bemidji State) and UWM (vs. Cardinal Stritch) were playing their first exhibition games of the year last night. I neglected the Badgers last night and headed downtown to see the Panthers instead for a handful of reasons. First, I’m headed to next week’s Badger exhibition, so I thought I’d try to get an early look at the Panthers to cover all my bases. Second, I neglected UWM so badly last year that I’m not sure if I even made a trip down to the MECCA (or U.S. Cellular Arena, as the kids are calling it these days) last year, and needed to make up for that. Third, we’ve got a recession going on, and the half-price ticket deal that UWM had going on for the game, combined with the general unpopularity of a UWM exhibition game meant that I could attend this one ...