MILWAUKEE, Wis. – November 25 marks a significant date for the Milwaukee women's basketball team. Not only will the Panthers finally kick off the 2020-21 season, but it marks the start of the program's 50th year of competition.
 
Basketball in Milwaukee may have been played as far back as 1896 but the 1971-72 season was monumental for the Panthers' women's basketball team as it was granted varsity status, paving the way for what we have today.
 
Coached by Erika Sander, Milwaukee finished the 1971-72 first season with a 4-3 record, earning its first victory on February 12 at UW-Platteville, 46-30. Sander continued to lead the Panthers for five more years and after one-year stints by Linda Borowski and Nancy Schley, M.A. Kelling took the reins and led Milwaukee to new heights.
 
In Kelling's second year, the Panthers went 17-10 after winning 23 games total prior to her arrival. The following season, the Panthers won 18 games and reached the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Regionals for the second consecutive season before the program moved to the Wisconsin Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WWIAC).
 
In 1982, Milwaukee became affiliated with the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) which began a stretch of dominance for the Panthers. MKE won a District 14 Championship its first three years, totaling 72 victories during that time.
 
Much of that success can be credited to four future Milwaukee Athletics Hall of Famers, including Carol Busche (1996), Maureen Pitrof (1997), Deb Schulman (1994), and Darla Wack (1999).
 
From 1985-89, the Panthers won another District 14 Championship and appeared in three more title games thanks in large part to All-American Umenia White. Upon leaving Milwaukee, White was the second-leading scorer and just four rebounds shy of being the second 1,000-point, 1,000-rebound player. She would later be inducted into the Milwaukee Hall of Fame.
 
In 1990-91, the women's basketball team joined the bulk of the Milwaukee Athletic Department and made the jump to NCAA Division I.
 
After competing as a Division I independent for three years, Milwaukee joined the Mid-Continent Conference for the 1993-94 and then moved to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, now called the Horizon League.
 
The first two seasons in the Midwestern Conference were tough, but then the Panthers hired Sandy Botham to take over the program. In her first year, Botham led Milwaukee to 16 wins, the eighth-best turnaround in NCAA Division I that year. Between the 1999-2000 season and 2005-06, the Panthers did not finish below second one time.
 
It was a milestone campaign in 2000-01 for Milwaukee as it set a school Division I record for wins, won the team's first-ever conference championship, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. That squad broke a number of school records with the emergence of sophomore Jessica Wilhite and freshman Maria Viall.
 
Wilhite shattered the school record with 93 three-pointers on her way to a school record 277 for her career, a mark that still stands today. For Viall, it was the first of four standouts seasons for the Panthers as she would go on to break Jaci Clark's career scoring record and become the first two-time League Player of the Year in school history (2002 and 2004).
 
Led by Traci Edwards, the Panthers rose to the pinnacle of the league in 2005-06, rolling to a 14-2 league record to earn the team's first No. 1 seed for a league tournament in the Division I era. Milwaukee earned its second tournament title, earning another NCAA Tournament bid before falling to Michigan State.
 
Edwards essentially rewrote the Panthers record books as arguably the best women's basketball player in Milwaukee history. The Menasha, Wis. native became the first woman in school, league, or state history with 2,000 career points and 1,000 rebounds. She also graduated as the all-time leading scorer in school (men or women), league, and state history with 2,340 career points.
 
In addition to owning the school record scoring average of 18.7 and rebounding mark of 9.5, Edwards was named two-time Horizon League Player of the Year, four-time First Team All-League member, four-time Horizon League All-Tournament selection, and the 2006 Horizon League Newcomer of the Year. She was inducted into the Milwaukee Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.
 
After Kyle Rechlicz was hired in 2012-13 and got settled in, she led the Panthers back to prominence with a 2015-16 postseason berth. Milwaukee was predicted to finish ninth of 10 in the Horizon League Preseason poll, but the Panthers rattled off a 12-6 record in league play to finish second in the regular season and conference tournament. That earned them a berth to the WNIT where they came within one possession of pulling off a road upset against Big Ten foe Minnesota.
 
Rechlicz followed that year with back-to-back 20-win seasons, totaling 62 wins in a three-year span, the most wins in a three-year span in Milwaukee NCAA Division I history. In 2017-18, MKE's third straight trip to the postseason, the Panthers broke the program record for shooting percentage in a game, connecting on 69.4 percent of its shots in a road win over Northern Iowa at the WNIT.
 
Now in her ninth year, Rechlicz is one of just three coaches in program history with at least 100 career victories as she has led the Panthers to at least 15 wins in five straight seasons.
 
Since its inception, the Milwaukee women's basketball program has provided incredible highlights including 13 conference or district championships, two NCAA Tournament appearances, 19 Bud K. Haidet Hall of Famers, nine All-Americans, and much more. The past 50 years have been special, but the Panthers are not done yet.