MILWAUKEE — A homegrown writer moved away from Milwaukee more than a decade ago, but his love for the team never faded. He decided to turn his Bucks fandom into a passion project and his blog now has followers from around the world.
Growing up in Milwaukee, Mitchell Maurer said his two passions collided while he was a student at St. Thomas More High School. In 2001, Mitchell had just witnessed the Milwaukee Bucks make a surprise trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Meantime, his love for writing grew each day in the classroom.
“As things kind of, from that team, fell off, I got really intrigued specifically because they weren’t favorites,” he said.
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His two hobbies became one when he left Milwaukee to attend college on the east coast, where Bucks games were hard to find on TV. At the time, the Bucks weren’t the best.
“They had a little bit of an underdog vibe to them and that was something that I appreciated,” he said.
Mitchell started a Bucks blog, which led him to a website called ‘Brew Hoop’ where he shares his analysis. It allows him to connect with friends and strangers who have one thing in common: a devotion to the Milwaukee Bucks.
The site that Mitchell now co-manages has more than 7,000 subscribers and a large international following, dating back to the Andrew Bogut days. Mitchell said most visitors are unaware that the website’s writers post stories in their free time.
“Everybody on our staff has a day job. I have a day job,” he said. “Getting the chance to keep doing that and growing that just allowed me to kind of stay connected to a place that I haven’t lived in 15 years.”
Mitchell said he contributes multiple articles a week, including his latest on the adjustments he believes the Bucks need to make after Game 1.
“One of the things I posted about in my blog yesterday was to embrace chaos. Throw a bunch of reads at Phoenix on defense. You try to introduce a bit of uncertainty to the equation and try to sew some confusion,” he said.
Despite the Game 1 loss, Mitchell said he’s still predicting the Bucks will prevail in six games. For that to happen, Mitchell insists a win in Game 2 is a necessity.
“If they’re up 3-2 at that point like, that’s the storybook ending right? That’s the ending that we all want,” he said.
