MILWAUKEE - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's basketball team officially gets the 2014-15 campaign started this weekend, heading to the state of North Dakota for a pair of games. Up first is the season opener Sunday, taking on North Dakota State in a matinee affair set to start at 2 p.m. The Panthers are coming off an 87-48 win over Southwest Minnesota State in their lone exhibition outing seven days ago, while the Bison are 1-0 to begin the year.

LOOKING AT NORTH DAKOTA STATE
The Bison begin their inaugural season under new head coach Maren Walseth with three returning starters in senior Brooke LeMar and juniors Holly Johnson and Marena Whittle. LeMar, the reigning Summit League Newcomer of the Year and an All-Summit League Second-Team selection, was the leading scorer for NDSU in 2013-14 at 15.1 points per game while also leading the Bison in assists with 5.3 per game. Whittle was the leading rebounder for NDSU in 2013-14, averaging 7.1 board per game. She also posted team-highs for blocks (27) and steals (34). Her 13.4 scoring clip ranked second on the team. The squad went 6-24 a season ago but opened 2014-15 with a 74-68 victory over Kent State Friday. Lemar led the way with 25 points.

SERIES HISTORY
The series is brief, having played just four times, all since 2006. UWM won for the first time (1-3) a season ago when it claimed a 76-64 victory at the Klotsche Center.

LAST GAME
Junior Jordyn Swan topped five players in double-figures with 20 points and UWM got the 2014-15 campaign started on the right foot with an 87-48 victory over Southwest Minnesota State University in an exhibition contest at the Klotsche Center. The Panthers built a 10-point advantage over the Mustangs by the second media timeout and never trailed on the day, leading by as many as 43 in the first contest of the season at the Klotsche Center.

Swan netted 17 of her game-high 20 in the first half, finishing 8-of-10 from the floor. Senior Ashley Green had 18 points and freshman Steph Kostowicz added 11 points and seven rebounds. Senior Macie Dorow finished with 10 points and six rebounds, while freshman Jenny Lindner chipped in 11 points off the bench to give Milwaukee five players in double-figures.

FOR OPENERS
The Panthers hold a 7-17 record in season-openers at the NCAA Division I level (dating back to 1990-91). A year ago, Milwaukee fell to the Wisconsin Badgers by a score of 85-60 at the Klotsche Center in the season opener. Head coach Kyle Rechlicz is now 1-1 in openers, as UWM ran away with an 82-58 win over Chicago State in Rechlicz's debut contest two years ago.

PRESEASON PUBLICITY
Senior Ashley Green was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team in the league's annual preseason poll of head coaches, media members and sports information directors.

NEW-LOOK PANTHERS
Milwaukee will have an interesting look to the roster this season after graduating three senior starters from a year ago. The roster features five players who were on the team in 2013-14 and seven newcomers. Among the new faces are a pair of transfers (one will be sitting out), a senior playing her first season of collegiate hoops and four true freshmen all looking to make a good first impression.

TIME TO STEP UP
The situation allows the Panthers an opportunity for new players to step up or returning players to expand their roles from last season. The team will return just 30.7 percent of its scoring (608 of 2,081 total points) and 36.9 percent of rebounding (370 of 1,004 total individual rebounds). When you break it down further, senior Ashley Green accounts for 70 percent of that returning point total and 55 percent of the boards.

HOW THEY ROLL
The Panthers were at it again last season and it would have been more noticeable had they not been even better at it two years ago. The team once again finished close to the top of the record book for three-pointers made and attempted. Prior to Kyle Rechlicz's arrival, the most three's made was 212 and attempted was 586. The marks set in 2012-13 (255 of 726) smashed the old standards. Last year, the team finished at 241 makes and 733 attempts, both numbers ending in the top two all-time.

MAKING BUCKETS
The 90 points Milwaukee scored against Cleveland State Feb. 23 last season marked a season-high, topping the 86 it scored against Western Illinois Nov. 17. UWM went 4-1 last season when it scored over 80 points. That was a one-game jump over the prior year, when the Panthers scored at least 80 points four times. This is a marked change for the offense. Looking back, the last time a UWM team scored more than 80 points at least four times in the same season was 2006-07 (four times that campaign). The last time Milwaukee netted at least 80 more than four times was back in 2000-01, when it did so seven times.

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREEN
One look at the career statistics of senior Ashley Green show an impressive trajectory. In each season at UWM, she has increased both her scoring average and her rebounding average and will look to continue the trend over her final campaign. As a freshman in 2011-12, Green averaged 10.4 points and 5.4 rebounds. She upped that to 11.6 ppg and 6.2 rpg and then followed that up with a junior season where she contributed 14.2 ppg and 6.7 rpg.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
The Panthers set a record for fewest turnovers per game in 2012-13 at 16.2 - an impressive total considering the record that they broke was the former standard of 17.3 set during the 2001-02 campaign (an improvement of over one per game). The new record did not last long, however, as UWM turned the ball over just 14.9 times per contest a year ago to shatter the record once again.

IT'S AN OLD HABIT
The Panthers have turned it up from three-point range recently, but have always been a threat from long distance. In fact, the team has a long history of making three's headed in to 2014-15. Milwaukee has made at least one three-pointer in every game dating back to an 0-for-4 showing from long-distance against Marquette back on November 26, 2002. That makes 359 games in a row heading into the game against the Bison. It's a ways to go for the NCAA record, however, which is held by Canisius at 510 in a row (1994-2011). The Horizon League record was halted two years ago when Loyola came up empty at 446. Cleveland State held the record previously - which was also the NCAA mark at the time - at 408 (1992-2007). For comparison, the NBA's longest streak is the Dallas Mavericks at 1,108 in a row.

SELECT COMPANY
Senior Angela Rodriguez went over 1,500 career points at the end of last season to become just the fifth player to reach that level in a UWM career. She started the season in 17th place on the all-time list moved all the way up to No. 5 (1,564).

AND NOW THERE IS 19
There was another addition to the 1,000-point club a year ago and it happened against Youngstown State Feb. 21. Ashley Green finished with 17 points that day against the Penguins, with her three-pointer with 5:20 remaining pushing her career total from 998 to 1,001 to become the 19th player to score over 1,000 career points at UWM.

1,000/500
Green not only scores, but rebounds. Sitting at 499 career rebounds headed into the game at UIC Feb. 17 last season, she grabbed an early board to become the 23rd player in program history to collect 500 rebounds in a career. She is now just the fifth player to have recorded over 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in a career in UWM's NCAA Division I era. The rest of the list includes Traci Edwards (2,340 pts/1,193 reb), Maria Viall (1,867/971), Lindsay Laur (1,404/791) and Sami Tucker (1,172/774).

BIG-TIME HONOR
Angela Rodriguez was named Second-Team All-Horizon League last season, becoming the first Panther to earn postseason all-league honors since 2010-11. She also earned a spot on the Mexico National Team in October, one of 12 chosen to play on the squad.

ASSIST RECORD IN HAND
Senior Angela Rodriguez broke the Milwaukee single-season record for assists against Wright State March 1 of last season. She went into the contest against the Raiders with 151, and her third of the day near the end of the first half in Dayton gave her 154 to break the mark of 153, set by Pam Bartnik during the 1993-94 campaign. She finished with 168.

MAKING A NAME FOR HERSELF
Head coach Kyle Rechlicz was named the seventh coach in program history in May of 2012. She also got off to one of the best starts - becoming the first UWM coach to win three of her first five contests of her initial campaign. In her first season, Rechlicz was also one of the youngest coaches at the NCAA Division I level - just seven coaches had earlier birth years when the 2012-13 campaign began.

GRAB A SPOT ON THE COUCH
Fans will have the opportunity to watch the Panthers all season long. The team will play five games on local broadcast television, once again returning to Time Warner Cable SportsChannel. Another 18 games will be carried live online on the Horizon League Network. For the Panthers' TWC SportsChannel contests, Bob Brainerd and former UWM great Maria Viall will once again be calling the action.

Early season games will also be available on the SEC+ Network (Missouri) and the WAC Digital Network (UMKC).

HEAD TO THE BIG 920
Every Milwaukee regular-season game will once again be available on the radio and online via "The Big 920" on your AM dial. Scott Warras is back for his ninth season donning the headset. Fans can also catch Warras' call with the majority of the team's HLN webcasts. A handful of games will be aired on WISN 1130 AM due to broadcast conflicts.

WELCOME
Head coach Kyle Rechlicz rounded out her staff in the offseason by hiring Ashlee McGee as an assistant coach and Scott Warras as the Director of Basketball Operations. Kelly Poster also begins her first season as the team's athletic trainer.

McGee comes to Milwaukee after most recently serving as the women's basketball assistant coach at Tennessee State University since the summer of 2012. Warras, the voice of the Panthers on radio broadcasts for the past eight seasons, joins the Milwaukee staff on a full-time basis and will work directly with Rechlicz on coordinating team travel, budget, practices and other program functions.

UP NEXT
The team remains on the road for an off day Monday before taking on North Dakota Tuesday. Tip off time is set for 8 p.m. as game two of a men's/women's doubleheader.