As the line from the famous movie Anchorman goes, “boy, that escalated quickly.”

It really did get out of hand fast for the Green Bay Phoenix, who found themselves sitting at 17-9 overall and 12-3 in conference play after an impressive 84-83 victory at Youngstown State on February 10^th.  GB was in the driver’s seat for a Horizon League regular season title and within striking distance of the greatest single-season turnaround in the history of Division I college basketball after a disastrous 3-29 record the season prior.

The team had climbed a mountain, from number 361 in the various final rankings the year prior into the top 200 this season. 

Less than a month later, the season was over. 

The Phoenix lost five of their final six games – including four of those five by more than double digits in what felt like a return to the Will Ryan era. 

After turning their home court into a fortress with a 10-1 record heading into Valentines Day, Green Bay lost four consecutive home games.

The icing on top of the frozen sledgehammer to the groin is that the season ended with not one, but two consecutive losses in embarrassing fashion to UW-Milwaukee, the archrival that Green Bay dominated in the first matchup back in December. 

The lone win in their 1-5 record to end the season came in what was a surprisingly convincing 69-61 victory at Cleveland State in one of the Phoenix most complete games of the season.  It was a sign of what could have been, but the back-to-back losses to the Panthers revealed a big problem on the defensive side of the floor.

In those four double digit losses down the stretch, the Phoenix allowed their opponents to shoot over 47% from the floor in each game and 50% or better in two of those games. 

Yes, Noah Reynolds was unavailable or limited for a significant portion of the final stretch of the season.  Any team that loses its best player – Reynolds was the likely Horizon League Player of the Year before going down injured – is likely going to struggle. 

Having Reynolds helped the team to outscore opponents and papered over some of those defensive issues. But the Phoenix defense had no answer for UWM in the Horizon League Tournament quarterfinal loss that ended their season as the Panthers were able to get to the rim almost at will.

“For us, weaknesses that we have to address going into next year is we’re going to have to defend the basketball at a higher level,” a teary eyed Sundance Wicks said after the game.  “As much as I don’t like talking about what’s forward right now and what we need to do, that’s something that we have to become better at.”

“We have really good team defense but when we get stretched out and we have to play individual basketball players in one and one situations and they isolate us and pick on us a little bit, we’re going to have to become better individual defenders. You have to guard your yard.”

It was a significant turnaround defensively for the Phoenix this season – they posted their best defensive efficiency rating since 2019 according to KenPom.com – but they still ranked 238^th in the country leaving plenty of room for improvement heading into next season.

Offensively, Green Bay’s improvement was even more significant going from ranking 359^th out of 363 in KenPom’s offensive efficiency a season ago and 345^th the season before that to 219th this season.

But for a program that wants to hang its collective hat on the defensive side of the ball, the team must get better defensively going into next season whether that’s through player improvement, roster upgrades, or even coaching. 

“It’s one thing to play the game of basketball on the offensive side but you have to defend your position as well,” Wicks said.  “So for us, we’re going to have to become better individual defenders or else we’re going to have to really scheme a different style of defense that allows us to finish a season stronger than 1-5. That’s all part of the process.” 

“I’m looking forward to that challenge in the offseason and I know our guys are too.”