Women's Basketball December 26, 2016

Panthers Kick Off Conference Play Thursday

Milwaukee gets league play going against Wright State

MILWAUKEE - After an impressive non-conference slate, the Milwaukee women's basketball team kicks off Horizon League play Thursday by welcoming Wright State to the Klotsche Center for a 7 pm contest. The Panthers and Raiders met three times last year, including in the league tournament semifinal. Both teams head into the game after extended breaks, with WSU last playing Dec. 21 in their home tournament finale, while Milwaukee's last game was a full 11 days earlier on Dec. 18.

LOOKING AT THE RAIDERS
Wright State has been a streaky team in the early going under first-year head coach Katrina Merriweather. After starting the season with four-straight wins, WSU then dropped its next four before sweeping through its home tournament to finish non-conference play at 8-4. Transfer guard Chelsea Welch leads the Raiders thus far with 16.9 points/game, while Lexi Smith (13.8) and Emily Vogelpohl (11.5) also are averaging double-digit scoring.

SERIES HISTORY
After sweeping the season series a year ago - including a 68-60 win in the league tournament - Milwaukee evened up its series with Wright State at 26-26. That ended a run of 13-of-14 for the Raiders dating back to the 2009-10 season. Milwaukee's wins last year were by 22, 11 and eight points.

UP NEXT
The Panthers wrap up their home stand with their fifth-straight game in Milwaukee, hosting Northern Kentucky for a New Year's Eve match up at 2 pm from the Klotsche Center.

LAST GAME
The Milwaukee women's basketball team was within three points with just over five minutes left but couldn't overcome a red-hot Golden Eagles' start in an 85-74 loss to Marquette Sunday afternoon from the Al McGuire Center.

The Golden Eagles (8-2) came out of the gates at a break-neck pace, scoring 27 points in the first quarter, connecting on 65-percent of their shots in the first 10 minutes before an even game the rest of the way.

"We really struggled in the first quarter adjusting to the pace of the game," Milwaukee head coach Kyle Rechlicz said. "I'm not big on making excuses by any means, but our team is very heavy into finals week right now and I think that showed a little today. And credit to Marquette – they really turned up the jets at the beginning and we struggled to stay with them.

"After that first quarter, we played well. We went back to playing Milwaukee basketball and I was proud of our team. We didn't quit. I think that's something you've seen in a lot of games this year that we have a lot of fight in us. I think that's the mark of a really good team is that, even when you're down, you don't hang your head and you stick together.

"We've got some work to do, but this is a good learning point for us before heading into conference."

Jenny Lindner and Steph Kostowicz each scored 17 to lead Milwaukee in this one, with both also grabbing six rebounds.

Bailey Farley netted a season-high 15 points on 6-11 shooting, while Sierra Ford-Washington stuffed the stat sheet with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists.

ON THE HORIZON
Milwaukee kicks off Horizon League play this Thursday when Wright State comes to the Klotsche Center. The Panthers finished league play last year 12-6 and runners-up in the conference - its best showing in nearly a decade. Not only did UWM finish second in the regular season, they also claimed second place in the league tournament and earned a berth to the WNIT. While league play doesn't kick off until Thursday, Milwaukee sits in second place in the standings in the early going with an 8-3 record after non-conference action.

FOR STARTERS
The Panthers will be opening their 23rd Horizon League season Thursday after officially joining prior to the 1994-95 campaign. The team is 10-12 in conference openers all-time, including 5-6 at home. A year ago, the Panthers dropped their opener at home to Green Bay on New Years Day before finding their stride for a 12-6 league record.

WHAT A START!
The 8-3 start by Milwaukee may not be overly surprising to some fans based on how successful last year went, but it is still plenty noteworthy. In fact, this year's 8-3 record is the best start through 11 games in the Division-I history of the program. This year's team also tied the best start in program history with the 1987-88 NAIA team that started 8-2 on its way to a 25-5 finish.

CRACKING THE POLLS
A few weeks ago, Milwaukee achieved yet another new feat when they cracked the top-25 in the College Insider Mid-Major poll at No. 20. That marked the first ever ranking of any kind in Milwaukee women's basketball Division-I history. This week, Milwaukee sits at No. 24 in the rankings.

PRESEASON RANKS
The Horizon League released its preseason rankings as voted on by coaches, media members and SIDs with the Panthers picked to be right back at the top this season. Milwaukee was tabbed third overall with 246 points, behind only Green Bay (299) and Detroit (256). Steph Kostowicz also was recognized when the votes were announced, earning first-team all-league honors after earning the same distinction at the end of last year's outstanding run.

COMING OUT SWINGING
Last year, Milwaukee made a habit of jumping out quickly on its opponents and building a very sizeable lead before they knew what hit them. That has been a trend once again in the early going this season. UWM is outscoring its first 11 opponents by 57 in the first quarter alone and boasts a 406-322 edge in first halves thus far.

THE COUNTDOWN TO 1,000
Jenny Lindner and Steph Kostowicz have been on a mission since day one in the Black & Gold and it seems only a matter of time until both individuals crack the 1,000-point milestone during this their junior seasons. Milwaukee entered the season with 19 players in program history reaching the historic scoring mark, with Lindner and Kostowicz well on pace to eclipse the barrier shortly. Heading into Thursday's game, Lindner sits with 923 points (77 away), while Kostowicz is at 793 points (207 away). Of Milwaukee's 19 players with 1,000+ points in their careers, there have been two other tandems to achieve the feat as part of the same class:

-Umenia White (1,597 points) and Cammie Nonhoff (1,087 points) from 1985-89

-Jaci Clark (1,830 points) and Marsha Housley (1,491 points) from 1979-83.

...AND THE COUNTDOWN TO 500
The same duo that has been lighting up the scoreboard for Milwaukee the past two-plus seasons has also been getting things done on the glass. Not only are Steph Kostowicz and Jenny Linder closing in on 1,000 career points, but both seem likely to crack the 500-rebound list this season, as well. Kostowicz is closest, with 495 (five away) entering Thursday's game, while Lindner isn't far away at 426 (74 away). To date, UWM has 23 players with 500 rebounds all time in program history. Of those 23, only 12 also reached the 1,000-point mark in their careers.

DE-FENSE
The Panthers turned up the defensive pressure Nov. 20 at Loyola and held the Ramblers to just 15 first-half points and 46 total for the game. That tied the fewest allowed by Kyle Rechlicz-coached Milwaukee team, equal to a 62-46 win at Cleveland State Jan. 9, 2016.

Then, just six days later, Milwaukee one-upped themselves yet again. Going up against tournament host Vermont as part of the TD Bank Classic, the Panthers again cranked things up defensively and limited the Catamounts to just five first-quarter points and just 44 for the game. That trumps both 46-point games as the new standard under Rechlicz.

In fact, no UWM team has conceded fewer points since the 2011-12 squad posted a 50-31 win over Valparaiso on Feb. 25 at the Klotsche Center.

Additionally, Milwaukee has now held four opponents to 50-or-less points this season (LIU-Brooklyn - 50 points; Chicago State - 49 points). That is one better than last year's squad and hasn't been done since the 2008-09 season also held four opponents to 50 points or less.

A LOT OF CHARITY WORK
Kyle Rechlicz's teams have increasingly improved on their free throw shooting, with last year being the third-best in program history, connecting on .737 percent of their freebies. This year's Panther squad is well above that mark, sinking 177-228 of their shots from the charity stripe heading into the game against Wright State. That is good for a .776 percentage - just behind the school record mark of .790 set back in the 2010-11 season.

Not only that, the Panthers' free throw shooting ranks 17th in the entire nation after 11 games. Iowa State leads the NCAA at .821 (211-257).

Individually, Jenny Lindner stands ninth in the entire nation with a rate of 92.9 percent from the line, missing just four (52-56) from the line all season.

DOUBLING DOWN
Steph Kostowicz has picked up right where she left off last year, recording seven double-doubles in her first 11 games of the season. The preseason first-team all-league honoree has been a monster all year, nearly averaging a double-double thus far with 17.4 points and 9.3 rebounds. Kostowicz's seven double-doubles not only leads the Horizon League, but also ranks tied for third in the entire nation. Washington's Chantel Osahor leads the with 10 in 13 games.

AWARD-WINNING PLAY
While Milwaukee hasn't even started the conference portion of its season, people have already taken plenty of notice of the Panthers' play on the court thus far.

Most recently, it was Steph Kostowicz's turn. The junior was named Horizon League Player of the week after a strong showing down the stretch in Milwaukee's come-from-behind win over North Dakota State Dec. 3.

That came just one week after six different players earned various awards after posting three wins in a five-day span. Bailey Farley, Alexis Lindstrom, Sierra Ford-Washington and Steph Kostowicz were all named to the TD Bank Classic All-Tournament Team, with Kostowicz also earning MVP honors.

On top of that, junior Jenny Lindner was named the Horizon League Player of the Week after three outstanding games. First, Lindner poured in a game-high 28 points to lead the way in the convincing 17-point win over Wisconsin. She also finished as the top scorer of the TD Bank Classic, with a combined 29 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists as Milwaukee swept through the tournament.

As if that weren't enough, Lizzie Odegard also was recognized, being named the league's freshman of the week after capping her strong week with a 14-point, seven-rebound performance in the tournament championship game. That already is the second time Odegard has earned the league's weekly freshman honor, also doing so following her first collegiate game. With that, Odegard became the first Panther to earn a league award after her collegiate debut in program history.

400 AND COUNTING!
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. 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 432 games in a row heading into the game against the Raiders. It's still 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 five 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.

TURKEY TOURNEY
With its sweep at the TD Bank Classic hosted by Vermont over the Thanksgiving weekend, the Panthers claimed their first in-season tournament title since the 2006 team went 2-0 at the SMU Hoops for the Cure Classic in Dallas, Texas. Milwaukee no only won both games this season in Vermont, but did so dominating fashion - taking the title by an average winning margin of 31. UWM improved its record to 17-10 all time in tournaments over the Thanksgiving holiday and broke the tie to jump up to 27-25 in all in-season tournaments.

YOU'RE IN GOOD HANDS WITH WAKEMAN
Christina Wakeman has been chosen as a nominee of the Allstate WBCA Good Works Team. The award - in its fifth year of existence - honors college basketball players for their community service work - something Wakeman has been no stranger to in her time with the Panthers.

Wakeman is one of 97 student-athletes nominated. A total of 10 will be named to the Allstate WBCA Good Works Team in February, and selected student-athletes will be honored at the 2017 WBCA Convention and at the 2017 NCAA Women's Final Four in Dallas, Texas.

WINNING BIG
The Panthers have made a habit this season with some rather lopsided wins. First, Milwaukee claimed a 27-point win over Loyola (73-46) on Nov. 20 - the biggest win in Kyle Rechlicz's four-plus years as head coach of the Panthers at that time. UWM then took down in-state rival Wisconsin by an impressive 17 points before a 38-point smothering (88-50) of LIU-Brooklyn to start the TD Bank Classic Nov. 25. Milwaukee then closed out that tournament with a 24-point win (68-44) over host Vermont Nov. 26. Most recently, Milwaukee took down Chicago State just Dec. 14 by 22 with a 71-49 win at home.

Not only is the 38-point win the new bench mark for margin of victory under Rechlicz, it's also the fourth-largest win for UWM since they moved to Division I heading into the 1990-91 season. It also marks the biggest win since the school-record 54-point victory (100-46) over Youngstown State back on Feb. 2, 2002.

STREAK SNAPPERS
The Panthers have already put a pair of long losing streaks to bed this season. With its win at Loyola on Nov. 20, UWM ended a six-game win streak by the Ramblers in the series, with the last win coming back in 2011. Then, just two days later, Milwaukee emphatically took down Wisconsin for its first win in that series since Dec. 15, 1992 - a span of 17-straight wins by the Badgers over nearly 25 years.

A B1G WIN
Another notable feat in its win over in-state rival Wisconsin was that it marked just the seventh time the Panthers have taken down a Big Ten foe. That marked the first win over the Big Ten since an 81-73 victory over Northwestern on Jan. 18, 2006. Milwaukee nearly made it 2-for-2 against the Big Ten with its game against Northwestern this season, falling 65-63 in a nail biter of a game that came down to the final shot.

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK
After missing the entire 2015-16 season following a preseason injury, Jordyn Swan returned for her redshirt senior year and made her return to the court with three minutes of action at NIU Nov. 16. Four days later, Swan had a big impact - netting 13 points in just 13 minutes of action. That is significant, as it marks the first time Swan reached double figures in scoring since her junior season when she netted 11 against Youngstown State on Jan. 31, 2015.

LEAGUE LEADERS
While it is still early, UWM has started out much like they played all of last season with their preliminary statistics ranking quite high in the league standings. Milwaukee already leads the conference in rebounding margin (+9.5) and ranks second in free throw percentage (.776), second in scoring offense (76.7 points/game), third in scoring margin (+11.5) and third in assists/game (15.2).

Individually, quite a few Panthers check in atop the league standings, headlined in numerous categories by do-it-all forward Steph Kostowicz. The junior is third in the Horizon League in scoring (17.4 points/game), third in field goal percentage (.564), third in rebounding (9.3/game) and second in blocks (1.5/game).

BREAKING THE CENTURY MARK
Milwaukee's 104-point performance against Northern Illinois Nov. 16 tied the second-most points in a game in program history - second only to the memorable 116-point game Dec. 4, 2012 against Bradley. The Panthers also scoring 104 points in a big win over Northeastern Jan. of 1991. This year's performance marked the sixth time UWM has eclipsed the 100-point barrier in its D-I history and the 12th time since basketball began at the school in 1971. The Bradley game marked the most recent reaching the century mark, with the other triple-figure outings including totals of 104 (Northeastern, 1/22/91), 102 (Detroit, 1/19/02), 101 (CSU, 2/17/96) and 100 (YSU, 2/2/02). The 218 combined points in the NIU this season also marked the second-most total points in a game in program history, shy of only the 228 in the 2012 win over Bradley. It also marked just the second time both teams were 100-plus in the same contest.

THAT'S KIND OF A BIG DEAL
Milwaukee did something it has never done before in the Nov. 16 game at Northern Illinois - have three players with a double-double in the same contest. Steph Kostowicz (30 pts, 11 reb), Sierra Ford-Washington (18 pts, 11 reb) and Jenny Lindner (16 pts, 12 reb) all recorded double-doubles in Milwaukee's 114-104 loss, marking the first time three players have done that all in the same game.

6 x 10 = TEAM EFFORT
Another notable from Milwaukee's Nov. 16 contest at Northern Illinois - six Panthers reached double figures in scoring. The Panthers entire starting five of Bailey Farley, Alexis Lindstrom, Jenny Lindner, Sierra Ford-Washington and Steph Kostowicz all scored 11 or more points, while freshman Lizzie Odegard came off the bench to also chip in 12. That marked the first time six players scored 10+ since Mar. 9, 2007 in an 83-79 win over Wright State in the Horizon League Tournament quarterfinals - a total of 280 games earlier.

THREE-HEADED MONSTER
Sierra Ford-Washington, Steph Kostowicz and Jenny Lindner have helped make Milwaukee a force to be reckoned with. The trio attributed for .612 percent of the Panthers' scoring last season and has gotten off to a blazing start to the 2016-17 season. So far, that number is right around the same at .609 percent, with the big three combining for 29 double-digit scoring performances and 10 double-doubles in just 11 games.

IN THE BOOKS
Last season was truly a memorable one for Milwaukee, recording its best regular season in a decade with quite a few remarkable accomplishments achieved by last year's squad.

• The 19 wins are the most in a season since the 2005-06 team that finished 22-9 on their way to the NCAA Tournament.

• The 12 conference wins are the most also since the 05-06 season.

• Milwaukee also posted 10 wins away from home, just one shy of the record 11 non-home wins set by the 2001-02 team.

• The Panthers finished their home season with a 9-5 mark - the first home winning season since 2010-11 (7-6). In fact, last season's home winning percentage of .643 is the highest since the 05-06 team went 13-3 for an .813 mark.

• Last year's second-place finish marked the first time Milwaukee has finished in the top half of the league standings since the 2010-11 team placed fourth and it is the first top-two finish for UWM since taking second in the 07-08 season.

STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM...
UWM is coming off an incredible season that saw them finish second in both the regular season and conference tournament to earn a postseason berth with a trip to the WNIT. Even more impressive, the Panthers were picked ninth overall in last year's preseason league poll following an eighth-place finish (of nine) in 2014-15. That made them just the third team in Horizon League history to finish in the bottom two one season and follow that up with a top-two finish the very next year. The other two?

-Youngstown State finished last (4-14) in the 2011-12 season before jumping up to second (11-5) in 12-13, making it to the WNIT.

-Butler placed seventh of eight (3-11) in 1988-89 before leaping up to second (12-4) the next year, losing to Notre Dame by just one point in the conference tournament championship.

MAKING A NAME FOR HERSELF
Head coach Kyle Rechlicz was named the seventh coach in program history in May of 2012. After three years of hard work, the Panthers broke through in her fourth season at the helm with an incredible campaign last year. Milwaukee racked up 19 wins, finished season in the Horizon League and earned a trip to the WNIT. All that work did not go unnoticed, as Rechlicz was named Horizon League Coach of the Year at the end of last season, making her just the second coach in program history to earn that honor.

WATCH 'EM ANYWHERE
Fans will have the opportunity to watch the Panthers all season long. The team will play four games on local broadcast television, once again returning to Time Warner Cable SportsChannel. Another 21 games will be carried live online on ESPN3 as well as one other road game via an opponent platform. For the Panthers' TWC SportsChannel contests, Bob Brainerd and former UWM great Maria Viall will once again be calling the action.

HEAD TO THE BIG 920
Nearly every Milwaukee regular-season game will once again be available on the radio and online via "The Big 920" on your AM dial. Matt Menzl will don the headset for the first time this season. Fans might remember Menzl after years of calling Milwaukee soccer and volleyball games, as well spending the past five seasons as the voice of Green Bay men's basketball. Fans can also catch Menzl's call with the majority of the team's ESPN3 webcasts. A select few games will not be aired over the radio waves due to broadcast conflicts, but can still be found online at MKEPanthers.com.

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Players Mentioned

#4 Bailey Farley: G; 5' 10"; Junior

#30 Sierra Ford-Washington: G; 5' 8"; Senior

#32 Steph Kostowicz: F; 6' 2"; Junior

#20 Jenny Lindner: G; 6' 0"; Junior

#5 Alexis Lindstrom: G; 5' 7"; Senior

#41 Jordyn Swan: G/F; 6' 0"; Senior

#43 Christina Wakeman: C; 6' 3"; Senior

#45 Lizzie Odegard: F; 6' 0"; Freshman

Players Mentioned

#4 Bailey Farley
: 5' 10"; Junior
: G

#30 Sierra Ford-Washington
: 5' 8"; Senior
: G

#32 Steph Kostowicz
: 6' 2"; Junior
: F

#20 Jenny Lindner
: 6' 0"; Junior
: G

#5 Alexis Lindstrom
: 5' 7"; Senior
: G

#41 Jordyn Swan
: 6' 0"; Senior
: G/F

#43 Christina Wakeman
: 6' 3"; Senior
: C

#45 Lizzie Odegard
: 6' 0"; Freshman
: F