When UWGB needs stop, it turns to Little Chute's Lowe

GREEN BAY - If University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s coach Linc Darner was in a room debating with other Horizon League coaches about which five players should be on the all-defensive team, he would not hesitate to bring up one of his own.

That’s how much the Phoenix coaching staff values 6-foot-8 senior forward Kenneth Lowe.

“I think a lot of times people just look at rebounding and blocks, but we gear a lot of our stuff defensively with what he can do in the game,” Darner said.

The former Little Chute star has been instrumental to the Phoenix’s defensive philosophy. It likes to pick up 94 feet, and Lowe is at the front of the team’s press. He’s active the full length of the floor and also in being able to get deflections and trap.

When it comes to half-court defense, UWGB can do several things with him that can’t always be done with a regular forward or frontline player.

“He can switch ball screens, he can guard a big guy down low, he can guard a perimeter player if you need to,” associate head coach Randall Herbst said. “He can trap ball screens, he can be just a help-side defender.

“I mean, just because of his versatility and how he moves so well and how athletic he is, we can just basically put him in any position and go, ‘OK, Kenneth is out there. We’re OK.’”

Lowe ranks third in the Horizon League with 1.5 blocks per game and is tied for seventh in steals with 1.2. He has 131 career blocks and needs two more to pass former standout Terry Evans for the third-most in program history.

His defensive contributions have been noticeable, and at times, his pressure in the backcourt has single-handedly turned a game around.

There perhaps is no better example than Lowe’s performance against Northern Kentucky last month at the Resch Center in what might have been the signature game of a career that has included 128 contests and 76 starts.

Lowe led the Phoenix to an 80-71 win after it erased a 14-point deficit with just over 16 minutes remaining.

He scored the team’s first eight points of the half, but it was the three blocks and two steals that stood out.

He ended up disrupting the entire flow of NKU’s offense in the final 20 minutes, both in the full court and half court. After the game, Darner said it was because of Lowe that his team won.

Lowe tied his career-high of four blocks that night and has swatted at least three shots in a game eight times this season. He also set a career-high with four steals at Kansas State in November and matched it at Oakland in January while also tying a career-high 11 rebounds in a win over UW-Milwaukee earlier that month.

While the NKU comeback was memorable, Darner also points out his play against Illinois-Chicago on Feb. 2 when the Phoenix went to trapping to help pull out an 84-80 win.

“I just think he can guard a lot of different guys,” Darner said. “Whether it’s an inside guy, and we have put him on perimeter guys and done different things. We have let him switch out on the floor.

“He is one of those guys that we can do different things on the defensive end, and that’s why he should be one of the five guys selected to the all-defensive team. I don’t think you can just look at stats. You have to look at what we do as a team.”

Darner has been happy with Lowe’s defense and his maximum effort during the two seasons he has coached him, but he does think he’s shown more consistency as a senior while expanding his responsibilities. Lowe would mostly guard post players last season.

The Phoenix lost one of the best defensive players in program history when Jordan Fouse graduated last spring. Still, it might be the departure of Lowe that will be more difficult to deal with.

“When you talk about next year, Kenneth may be the hardest guy to replace because of the things he can do with our different presses,” Darner said. “We can go into a game saying, ‘OK, we are going to go double team the point guard with him in. We are going to go trap the first pass with him in.’

“He has been really good at it, where some guys they just don’t quite get it all the time.”