MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Maybe it was the jet lag. Again.

Or maybe it was the cold weather. Again.

Heck, maybe it was the black jerseys.

What ever the case, the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team once again played like a different team on the road in a 58-52 loss to Wisconsin-Milwaukee yesterday.

Hawai'i dropped to 3-2, with both losses on the road. UWM improved to 4-2, with all four wins at home.

"What you saw tonight was not the real Rainbow Warrior basketball team," Hawai'i head coach Riley Wallace said. "I'm not making excuses, I'm just trying to explain something that's very difficult as a coach, and that is to coach two different teams. If you see my team play in Hawai'i, they have a lot of energy. But once we get off that plane, it all goes."

A crowd of 4,325 at the U.S. Cellular Arena watched the Panthers beat the Rainbow Warriors for the second consecutive season. In last season's ESPN Bracket Buster, UWM beat Hawai'i, 87-81, at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Hawai'i had to travel to Milwaukee this season as a "return" game. Due to several delayed flights, the 'Bows took 20 hours to get from Honolulu to Milwaukee on Thursday.

"We just don't seem to want to be tough on the road," Hawai'i co-captain Deonte Tatum said. "There's no excuses. Nothing. The travel had nothing to do with it."

Actually, the Panthers' pressure defense had something to do with it, too.

"We were committed to pressuring and trying to get Hawai'i to run their offense from the sidelines and from way outside the 3-point arc," UWM head coach Rob Jeter said. "It wasn't pretty but we got it done. I thought the key was our defensive intensity."

Forced to make longer passes than usual, the 'Bows committed 20 turnovers (UWM had just 10).

"I'm really kind of at a loss for words," Hawai'i forward Julian Sensley said. "We do so well against it at home, but then we get on the road and everybody freezes up or something."

With freezing temperatures outside the arena, the 'Bows shot for a season-low field goal percentage of 40.4 percent. Sensley was the only Hawai'i player to make a 3-pointer, and the 'Bows went 1 for 13 overall (7.7 percent) from long range.

But when the 'Bows were able to make crisp passes, the low-post was effective.

Junior forward/center Ahmet Gueye finished with 19 points on 9-of-13 shooting. Forward Sensley added 13 points and 10 rebounds, and forward "Big Matt" Gipson had six points and 10 rebounds.

UWM countered with center Adrian Tigert, who was described by Wallace as "the Rainbow Warrior killer." The 6-foot-7 senior finished with a team-high 16 points and six rebounds. In the two victories over Hawai'i, Tigert had 35 points on 13-of-17 shooting from the field.

"Last year, I was fortunate enough to get real open and hit the open shots," Tigert said. "Tonight, by my standards, I might have forced a couple, but I was lucky enough to get guys off their feet and step through and finish."

The Panthers took control late in the first half with an 11-2 run that broke a 15-15 tie and gave them a 26-17 lead. UWM eventually took a 26-21 advantage at intermission, with Tigert scoring 11 in the first half.

The 'Bows fell behind by as many as 15 in the second half before staging a late rally.

Sensley and Gueye combined to score 11 points during a 13-2 surge that cut the UWM lead to 55-52 with 56 seconds remaining.

UWM's Chris Hill made one of two free throws to increase the lead to 56-52 with 33.6 seconds remaining. On Hawai'i's ensuing possession, a turnover led to a breakaway dunk by Boo Davis, sealing the victory for the Panthers.

"We hung in there and found spurts in the second half to get the energy level going," Wallace said. "But (UWM) is too good to let you take it away from them. I still give credit to Milwaukee because they played us the way you should play us."

But the 'Bows also played decent defense, limiting the Panthers to 39 percent shooting from the field. Hawai'i also out-rebounded UWM, 42-36.

"That's the most frustrating part," Tatum said. "We did a lot of things to make us feel like we should have won this game."

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com.