Women's Basketball February 03, 2017

Milwaukee Looks For Bounce-Back Game At Oakland

Golden Grizzlies handed No. 21 Green Bay first league loss Thursday

MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee women's basketball team closes out its five-game road trip Saturday afternoon at Oakland for a 2 pm Central tip. The Panthers are looking to rebound from a loss at Detroit Mercy Thursday night, while the Golden Grizzlies are flying high after handing No. 21 Green Bay its first league loss of the season in a 77-74 win. UWM and OU are separated by just one game in the conference standings heading into Saturday's match up.

THE FIRST TIME AROUND
UWM twice erased sizable deficits in the fourth quarter alone before coming up just short in a 75-73 loss to Oakland back on Jan. 11 in Milwaukee. The Panthers had a few looks at the basket on the game's final possession but just couldn't get the ball to fall in the narrow defeat.

LOOKING AT THE GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Oakland is a well-balanced squad, with a league-best five different players averaging at least 10 points/game. Somewhat unique is that the team's leading scorer - Taylor Jones, 14.6 ppg - typically comes off the bench for OU. The Golden Grizzlies grab a league-best 11.3 steals per game in running a high-pressure system.

SERIES HISTORY
UWM doesn't have a lot of history with one of the Horizon League's newest members, but does hold a 5-4 lead in the all time series. The Panthers had won three straight before Oakland's win earlier this year.

UP NEXT
The Panthers return home for the start of their final homestand of the season, starting Thursday, Feb. 9 by hosting Youngstown State.

LAST GAME
The Milwaukee women's basketball team ran into a red-hot Detroit Mercy squad Thursday night in a 77-63 loss from Calihan Hall.

The Titans (12-10, 8-3 Horizon) shot 51.7 percent from the floor for the game, including hitting 10-20 from three in the win.

Milwaukee (15-7, 7-4 Horizon) had a chance to cut the lead to single digits early in the fourth quarter, only to see UDM score eight-straight to put the game out of reach.

"I'm really disappointed in how we came out and played. This is not typical in how we play, especially on the road," Milwaukee head coach Kyle Rechlicz said. "We just didn't come out with the focus that you need and our communication was not where it needs to be against a team like Detroit Mercy. We have to be mentally and physically tougher if we want to compete in this conference."

Sierra Ford-Washington had 15 points, seven rebounds and one assist to lead Milwaukee. Steph Kostowicz also had 15 points and eight rebounds.

Alexis Lindstrom added another 10 points, while Bailey Farley chipped in with nine points, five assists and three rebounds.

Christina Wakeman was big off the bench for the Panthers with six points on 3-4 shooting to go with five rebounds.

Rosanna Reynolds led Detroit Mercy with 21 points and eight assists.

BLOCK PARTY
It's no wonder Youngstown State shot so many threes against Milwaukee Jan. 28, as Steph Kostowicz was a force down low defensively. Kostowicz tied her career-high with six blocks in the game. The junior also achieved that feat at the end of her freshman season to mark the second time she finished one shy of Traci Edwards' program record of seven blocks in one game. Not only that, Kostowicz now has 100 blocks for her career, making her the fifth player in program history to achieve that feat. She now ranks 68 shy of the school record and just 12 away from third place all time.

DOUBLING DOWN
The Panthers have had quite a number of big performances this season. In fact, UWM has turned out an impressive 14 double-doubles on the season. Steph Kostowicz leads the way with nine - one shy of the league lead entering Thursday's game. Jenny Lindner also has four such performances on the season, while Sierra Ford-Washington had 18 points and 11 rebounds at Northern Illinois earlier this year.

BEATING THE BUZZER
Steph Kostowicz's layup with 0.9 left on the clock Jan. 26 at Cleveland State brought back memories from last season. Sierra Ford-Washington twice sent Milwaukee home with a win in the closing seconds last year. The point guard's layup with seven seconds left sealed the win over UIC last January before hitting a jumper in the paint one month later for the Panthers first buzzer-beater against Cleveland State.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB
With her three-pointer with 2:06 remaining in the first half in the Jan. 13 against Detroit Mercy, Jenny Lindner became just the 20th player in program history to score 1,000 points for her career. Lindner was able to reach the milestone in just her 79th game, making her the seventh-fastest to 1,000 points in Panther history. The junior should move her way up the charts plenty still this year with at least 10 games still left on the schedule.

THE COUNTDOWN TO 1,000
While Jenny Lindner reached the 1,000-point club earlier this year, she likely won't be the only addition this season as classmate Steph Kostowicz is right behind and is well on pace to eclipse the barrier later soon. Heading into Saturday's game, Kostowicz sits with 950 points (50 away). Heading into this year, Milwaukee had 19 players with 1,000+ points in their careers. Of those 19, only two other tandems achieved 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 both right around 1,000 career points, but both seem likely to crack the 500-rebound list this season, as well. In fact, Kostowicz achieved that milestone feat in the Dec. 31 win over Northern Kentucky with her first rebound of the game, making her just the 24th player in program history to notch 500 rebounds for her career. Heading into Saturday's game, she now has 571 boards to her name. Meanwhile, Lindner isn't far away at 491 (nine away). To date, UWM has 24 players with 500 rebounds all time in program history. Of those 24, only 12 also reached the 1,000-point mark in their careers.

A NEAR TRIPLE DOUBLE
Sierra Ford-Washington had quite the remarkable stat line Jan. 13 against Detroit Mercy. The senior point guard finished with 16 points, nine rebounds and eight assists - awfully close to a triple double. Not only would that have been her first triple-double, but it would have been just the second in program history. The first and only in Milwaukee history came on March 9, 2007 when Jody Crumble finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in a Horizon League Semifinal contest at No. 22 Green Bay.

SCHOOL DAY SUCCESS
Milwaukee has had a pair of thrillers in front of big crowds in "school day" game this season. Things started against Detroit Mercy Han. 13 in front of 2,400 fans with a big fourth-quarter push for an 81-69 win. Then, less than two weeks later, Steph Kostowicz beat the buzzer at Cleveland State for their school day game for an 80-78 victory.

Those two wins moved UWM to 4-1 in four years games in front of the youngsters, including a 3-1 mark when hosting area schools inside the Klotsche Center, with plenty of other memorable finishes in its short history. Milwaukee finished this year's game on a 26-10 run for the big comeback W over Detroit Mercy. That came one year after Sierra Ford-Washington hit a jumper in the lane with 6.7 seconds left, giving UWM a 59-58 win over Cleveland State. In 2015, Ashley Green went off for 31 points and 10 rebounds on her birthday and helped spark a late 14-3 run for a 66-60 win over Oakland.

400 AND COUNTING!
The Panthers have been on fire from behind the arc of late, headlined by hitting 14 threes against Valparaiso Jan. 7. That's nothing new for Milwaukee, though, as they have been lighting it up from three-point range for a while now. In fact, the Panthers have made at least one three-point in every game dating back to an 0-for-4 showing against Marquette back on Nov. 26, 2002. That makes 443 games in a row heading into the game against the Golden Grizzlies.

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.

HEATING UP
While Milwaukee has been hitting threes for quite some time, that has especially been the case of late. After a cold spell early in the season, UWM has connected on eight or more three-pointers in nine of its last 11 contests. Not only that, but the Panthers flirted with their school record of made threes (17) Jan. 7 at Valparaiso by hitting seven in the first quarter alone before finishing with 14 for the game.

Not coincidentally, Milwaukee's top marksman - Alexis Lindstrom - has led the charge in hitting 31 shots from deep in the last 11 games alone, including going 5-for-8 two different times in that span.

HELPING HAND
Part of the reason Milwaukee has had such hot shooting of late is the ball movement and the play from its two primary point guards. On Jan. 5 at UIC, Alexis Lindstrom dished out a career-high eight assists as UWM had a season-best 20 assists as a team in the win. Then, two days later at Valpo, it was Sierra Ford-Washington's turn. The senior recorded a season-best seven of the team's 17 assists in the comeback win. Ford-Washington followed that up with another seven-assist performance against Oakland, before setting her teammates up eight times against Detroit Mercy Jan.13.

OH SO CLOSE
While the Panthers' 15-7 record is certainly impressive, Milwaukee is just a few shots away from one of the best marks in the entire nation. Milwaukee had buzzer-beater attempts against both Northern Illinois and Northwestern fall just short for a pair of extremely close non-conference losses, and had three attempts in the final 10 seconds just miss against Oakland.

LEAGUE LEADERS
It has been a busy season but UWM has quietly once again established themselves as on the best in the league with their statistics ranking quite high in the conference standings. Milwaukee ranks second in the league in three point shooting (.344), free throw percentage (.777), rebound margin (+7.0) scoring offense (74.8 points/game) and field goal percentage (.430).

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 310-399 of their shots from the charity stripe heading into the game against Oakland. That is good for a .777 percentage - just below the school-record mark of .790 set back in the 2010-11 season.

Not only that, the Panthers' free throw shooting ranks ninth in the entire nation after 22 games. South Dakota State leads the NCAA at .812 (328-404).

Individually, Jenny Lindner stands 10th in the nation with a rate of 90.5 percent from the line, missing just six (86-95) from the line all season.

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.

DE-FENSE
The Panthers have been turning up the defensive pressure this season, with the Dec. 31 game against Northern Kentucky just the latest example.

It started early with the Nov. 20 game at Loyola when UWM 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.

Milwaukee then duplicated that performance by holding Northern Kentucky to just three points in the second quarter and 44 for the game to equal the benchmark set against Vermont.

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 five opponents to 50-or-less points this season (LIU-Brooklyn - 50 points; Chicago State - 49 points). That is two better than last year's squad and hasn't been done since the 2001-02 team limited opponents to 50 points or less an impressive seven times while going 20-8.

THE W's AND THE L's
As one might expect, there are certainly some statistical categories that stand out as the difference between Milwaukee's 15 wins compared to its seven losses:

W's        L's
FG%             .452       .383
Def FG%                          .401       .484
Rebound Margin   +10.9     -0.5
PPG             78.0       67.9
PPG Against        59.9       82.5

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.

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 considerably lower at .569 percent, with the big three combining for 48 double-digit scoring performances and 14 double-doubles in just 22 games.

AWARD-WINNING PLAY
People have already taken plenty of notice of the Panthers' play on the court thus far.

Most recently, Lizzie Odegard was named Horizon League Freshman of the Week - already the third time (Nov. 14, Nov. 28, Jan. 9) she has earned that honor in her young career.

Steph Kostowicz (Dec. 5) and Jenny Lindner (Nov. 28) were both named Horizon League Player of the Week earlier this season.

On top of that, 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.

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 by 22 on Dec. 14 with a 71-49 win and UIC by 28 on Jan. 17 with an 83-55 W - both 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. Finally, with its win at Youngstown Sate Jan. 28, the Panthers stopped an eight-game skid against the Penguins, notching their first win in the series un head coach Kyle Rechlicz.

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.

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.

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 second 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 Spectrum Sports (formerly 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' Spectrum Sports 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

#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

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

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