UW-Milwaukee guard Seth Hubbard (12) hangs on the rim after dunking against Dominican in a game Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at the Klotsche Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Seth Hubbard has seen "Space Jam" before. Now, he's lived it.

In the waning seconds against Robert Morris on Dec. 6 at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, Hubbard reached skyward and behind his head, straining his body to its very limit to try and just get a fingertip on the rebound.

Turns out he got a lot more than just that, with an unbelievable buzzer-beater to send the Panthers to a 74-72 win in the Horizon League opener.

Hubbard, with his left hand, knocked the rebound away from Robert Morris’ Darius Livingston, somehow finding enough leverage to float the ball up toward the rim. It bounced off the very top of the backboard, an ever-so gentle goodbye kiss, and fell right through the cylinder as the buzzer sounded. 

“My mind was just, ‘Crash,’” Hubbard said. “That’s what I’m taught to do in practice. As soon as you see the ball, I knew I had to get it up in some kind of way. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna just tip it.’” 

Hubbard, the Toledo transfer, ran around in jubilation, mobbed by his teammates before jumping on the scorer’s table. The officials put 0.2 seconds back on the clock after conferring, which wasn’t enough time for a catch-and-shoot for the Colonials. 

And, yes, his teammates made sure to point out the similarities to Michael Jordan’s game-winner over the Monstars in Space Jam.

“God kind of took it from there,” Hubbard said. 

Here are three takeaways from the thriller in downtown Milwaukee. 

A wild sequence in the end

Following a dunk to cut the Panthers lead to one and missed Stevie Elam three, tough interior defense by Aaron Franklin – switching off his man to guard the driver – put the ball back in the Panthers’ hands when Dorceus grabbed the rebound and was fouled. 

Dorceus split his free throws, allowing the Colonials to tie it up with 10 seconds to play when DeSean Goode, who led all scorers with 26 points on the night, corralled a miss and laid it in. 

Dorceus took the inbound pass and raced up court, going to his left on a Danilo Jovanovich screen and hoisted up a deep three with three ticks left. 

The ricochet caromed long off the back iron, where Livingston was seemingly in perfect position to grab the board and send the game to overtime. 

Hubbard, though, had inside position after beating Livingston to the paint once Dorceus put the shot up. He also had two more inches of height. 

“The play was exactly how I drew it up,” Panthers head coach Bart Lundy joked. “We had good spacing and we had the two ball screens in the middle. I thought we had as good a situation as we could get. We had a timeout but it didn’t make any sense to call it. Great crash and just Seth’s athleticism, ability to get his left hand on the ball is pretty phenomenal.”

On an evening where offense wasn’t always easy to come by for Milwaukee – it shot just 38.3% from the field but made its living at the foul line – Hubbard was able to carry the load at times and finished with 21 points. 

A much better feeling going into Horizon play

The frustration from the first month of the year – and the first half tonight – was worn by Faizon Fields’ jersey in the early goings of the second half. Whistled for a foul, his fourth, Fields grabbed his top by the collar and pulled, ripping the fabric. 

He and the Panthers erased plenty of frustrations the rest of the way, moving to 1-0 in Horizon League play after taking many humblings in non-conference play. 

Following a deflating 24-point loss at Akron seven days prior, Lundy made it clear the goal of the next week was to find who wanted to play defense. Milwaukee seemed to find some of those answers during the mini-break and turned to Isaiah Dorceus in the starting lineup and Stevie Elam and Aaron Franklin for heavy minutes off the bench. 

“I thought we showed the best grit that we’ve had all year,” Lundy said. 

It was a lineup with Elam and Franklin that helped erase a 12-point deficit in the second half. Franklin finished with 12 points, six rebounds and was a team-high +10 on the floor. 

“Aaron Franklin came in the game and I thought his energy and his intensity and communication really changed us defensively,” Lundy said.

Defense fuels the comeback

When the Panthers found their pressure and connectivity on defense, they found themselves back in the game. 

Milwaukee trailed, 50-39, early in the second half on the heels of a nightmarish stretch wrapped around the intermission in which the Colonials rattled off a 20-5 run. The Panthers struggled to get stops and, as such, couldn’t seem to crack the physical Colonials defense and went 5 minutes, 30 seconds without scoring. 

“I don’t know that there was much rah-rah at halftime,” Lundy said. “I was pretty upset with our group.” 

Robert Morris at that point had just three turnovers and was shooting well over 50% from the field. It missed 13 of its next 14 field goals and turned the ball over five times in the ensuing six minutes. 

The Panthers took the lead in fitting fashion when Danilo Jovanovich blocked a shot on one end and laid home a fastbreak layup on the other with 9:15 to play. 

Robert Morris shot just 29% from the field in the second half and finished with 10 turnovers. One of the nation’s top offensive rebounding teams, as well, the Colonials grabbed only nine of their 35 misses, their lowest total of the year. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Seth Hubbard sends UWM past Robert Morris with must-see buzzer beater