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GAME NOTES: Winners of three straight, the Milwaukee Panthers take a break from their Horizon League schedule tonight to host the Niagara Purple Eagles in a BracketBusters event at U.S. Cellular Arena.

Heading into this first-ever meeting between the two schools, the Panthers have managed to even their conference mark at 8-8 thanks to a 69-59 defeat of Cleveland State at home on Thursday night. Milwaukee will be on the road in the Windy City, facing Loyola-Chicago and Illinois-Chicago to close out the regular season next week.

As for the Purple Eagles, they finally appear to be living up to expectations now that they have won two in a row and four of their last five outings overall. Obviously Niagara was expected to dismiss a dismal Marist team last Sunday (70-51), but the real eye-opener was the 87-74 defeat of Siena, a team that had the longest winning streak in the nation at the time, just prior.

As expected, Niagara scored the first points of the game against the Red Foxes and never looked back as it survived just 7-of-23 shooting from three-point range and 9-of-17 at the free-throw line in the 19-point win. Bilal Benn recorded a double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds, while Rob Garrison came up a rebound shy of his own double-double as he tallied 18 points and handed out five assists. Demetrius Williamson and Tyrone Lewis checked in with 14 and 11 points, respectively. The Purple Eagles always have the potential to blow up in the scoring column, hitting for 72.1 ppg at the moment, but the squad is shooting just 40.4 percent from the floor and 31.5 percent out on the perimeter, so they are only hurting themselves at the moment. Lewis is the top scorer with 16.4 ppg, while Benn (13.4 ppg) handles the action in the paint with his 10.0 rpg. Garrison (11.1 ppg) also adds some scoring punch, yet all three of those players are shooting under 39.0 percent from the field at the moment.

Even though they are in their first years with the Panthers, both JaRob McCallum and Lonnie Boga earned some praise earlier this week as they each tallied 12 points to lead the Panthers to the 10-point win over Cleveland State at home. At one point in the second half Boga was in charge of the Milwaukee offense as he scored 10 straight points in order to put some distance between the Panthers and Vikings. James Eayrs contributed to the offense as well with 11 points. Eayrs is currently second on the team in scoring this season with his 12.6 ppg and is one of the top rebounders for the group with close to six boards per outing. Ricky Franklin usually gets praise for his efforts which bring the team 14.7 ppg and a team-best 108 assists over the course of 28 starts. Between the two of them, Eayrs and Franklin have combined for 97 of the team's 204 three-point conversions thus far.

Benn, who can be somewhat unpredictable from one game to the next, needs to have a strong effort on the inside in this meeting in order for it to go in favor of the Purple Eagles, even if Niagara has been suspect on the road this season.