The UW-Milwaukee men’s basketball will not be taking part in any postseason tournaments this season. Credit: Rick Wood

By of the

Chalk this one up as a disputed call.

The UW-Milwaukee men's basketball team — banned last season from postseason play because of poor academic performance — had treated this year as a fresh start.

Every significant player remained in the program. The Panthers opened the season winning a tournament in California. They won road games against Big Ten opponents Wisconsin and Minnesota and finished fifth in the regular-season Horizon League standings. And while they lost Sunday to eventual champion UW-Green Bay in the conference tournament, they finished with a 20-13 overall record.

Off the court, the Panthers became postseason eligible again thanks to dramatic academic improvement. And although they couldn't make the NCAA or NIT tournaments, their résumé was strong enough to earn invitations to both the College Basketball Invitational and the CollegeInsider.com tournaments.

So, which one are they going to? Neither.

Athletic director Amanda Braun responded to an email inquiry from the Journal Sentinel with a lengthy statement, saying the team's results were not good enough and postseason play this year "was not in the best interests of our program."

Head coach Rob Jeter, who has one year left on his contract, isn't talking.

But his players are ticked.

"No post-season again... #outofourcontrol" tweeted first-team all-Horizon League selection Matt Tiby, a senior forward. "If the decision was mine I would be starting up practice tomorrow."

"It really is just us," tweeted junior swingman Cody Wichmann.

Akeem Springs, the Panthers' second-leading scorer and rebounder, was especially verbose. He fired off a long series of tweets about the situation as well as his future at UWM.

"Since when is college about limiting opportunities?" read Springs' first tweet.

"When we got a ban last year was that any of the players fault? We did nothing?" said another.

"So you take away the opportunity when we actually have one? We won 20 games," Springs continued.

"Last year we were banned. All of our players stayed because we were so down for Milwaukee," he tweeted.

"If it wasn't for the love for my coaches and teammates, I would leave."

Academics improved

The NCAA banned the Panthers in 2014-'15 for failing to meet Academic Progress Rate requirements in a four-year window spanning from 2009-'10 through 2012-'13. The APR, as defined by the NCAA, is a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete each term. A perfect score would be 1,000, while a score of 925 translates to roughly a 50% graduation rate.

At the time, the school announced it was adding academic advisers, helping incoming players transition to college life and screening for players who might need additional support with their schoolwork.

The Panthers became eligible again this season after recording a perfect APR score of 1,000, and the school already has been informed the team will post a second perfect score when the NCAA makes that announcement this spring.

Financially speaking, UWM — like all state schools — has been hit hard by state-mandated budget cuts and the athletic department has not been immune. But program boosters would have covered some or possibly all the costs incurred by taking part in a tournament.

"We are proud of the accomplishments of our men's basketball program," Braun's statement began. "The work the team has done in the classroom this year, compiling a program-best 3.104 grade-point average in the Fall 2015 term, along with the work it has done in the community, is commendable."

She said UWM strives to be a consistent top 100 NCAA Division I men's basketball program, and that "our goal is to win the Horizon League and our expectation is to finish among the top three in the Horizon League on an annual basis."

Braun said she weighed those goals, along with the use of resources, and what would be "more impactful" experiences for players in the program, and not one of the lesser postseason tournaments.

UWM isn't the only Horizon League team that has declined postseason opportunities. Oakland, which finished second in the Horizon League standings, announced it would only accept an invitation to participate in the new Vegas 16 tournament, which will take place March 26-30 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.