UWM planned to win

Wisconsin-Milwaukee's players didn't madly chase each other around the floor or do anything extraordinary to celebrate the biggest win in school history.

The Panthers are above all that. This was business as usual.

"We expected this," forward Joah Tucker said. "It's wasn't a big surprise for us."

Wisconsin-Milwaukee, whose players were briefly barred from practicing Wednesday when they couldn't produce their student IDs, pulled off the first stunner of the NCAA tournament, beating Alabama 83-73 on Thursday in Cleveland.

Now everyone knows the Panthers.

Tucker and Ed McCants scored 21 points apiece as Milwaukee (25-5) won its first NCAA tourney game in its second try. Two years ago, the 12th-seeded Panthers nearly knocked off Notre Dame, losing 70-69.

The underrated Horizon League champions finished the job this time, outplaying one of the SEC's top programs and continuing a trend of No. 12s beating No. 5s in March. That first-round matchup has produced an upset in 16 of the past 17 tournaments, the only exception being in 2000.

For 40 minutes, Wisconsin-Milwaukee was the team that looked like it came from the power conference.

"This is an atypical team from the Horizon League," Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said.

Kennedy Winston had 20 points and Ronald Steele 16 for the Crimson Tide (24-8), who had hoped to have another run like a year ago when they made it to the round of eight. But Alabama got outplayed by a lesser-known opponent from a little-known conference playing in a friendly arena.

"This is what March is all about," Wisconsin-Milwaukee coach Bruce Pearl said. "We represent the rest of that high non-major level of basketball. These guys feel they can play at that level, and they're getting the opportunity to show it in this tournament."

If anyone has a home-court advantage it's the Panthers, who won here three weeks ago and have four straight victories on Cleveland State's home floor.

Milwaukee, which has won 10 straight and 18 of 19, will play fourth-seeded Boston College (25-4) Saturday in the second round of the Chicago Regional.

McCants, the Horizon's player of the year whose college career has included stops at Northwestern and a junior college in Texas, arrived at the Wolstein Center with a freshly shaved head.