While only five basketball players can take the court at one time, first-year UW-Platteville women's coach Tina Kuhle knows full well that fans can become the sixth player for the home team.

Kuhle is building up a fan base as she builds the Pioneer program.

"Any program that wants to develop into a top-tier program has to develop some kind of homecourt advantage," Kuhle said. "The men's program did a great job in starting the O-Zone last year. That plays a significant part of homecourt advantage. It's nice to have the boosters here, the parents here. Getting the community involved in the program will be next step."

Kuhle is in her first year as the Pioneer head coach after serving as an assistant coach for two seasons. Prior to that, she led Clarke College to three Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference titles.

She currently has her team with a 5-2 record after three straight victories. Kuhle will lead the Pioneers into their next home game Wednesday, Dec. 22 against Madison's Edgewood College. Tip-off time has been changed to 8 p.m. to accommodate the finals being held in Williams Fieldhouse.

The Pioneers are hoping for good community support as many students will be heading home for the holidays.

A special draw is the number of area student-athletes on the floor. Darlington's Shannon Boatman and Southwestern graduate Holly Kaiser are the top two scorers for the Pioneers, while Southwestern's Lisa Wubben and Potosi's Emily Fritz are providing invaluable minutes off the bench.

"It is our number-one priority," Kuhle said. "We want to get the local kids to come here and develop our program. With the AAU teams in the area, and the high school programs here, we have a lot of high-caliber coaches. It is to our benefit to recruit these people. We have people like Holly and Lisa from Southwestern, and Shannon from Darlington. That even adds to our homecourt advantage because they bring a lot of fans to the games."

Kuhle and assistants Mike Huser and Chris Bianchi are tireless recruiters, and they have a great product to sell. Kuhle learned that first-hand the last two years while part of her job description involved working as an admissions counselor.

"I learned a lot about UW-Platteville," Kuhle said, "about our admissions requirements, our majors, what our school is known for, the agriculture, the engineering, the business and all that we do well. That experience has really helped me become a better recruiter, and it makes it easier going out and talking to potential recruits because it's not just basketball we're offering."

On the court, Kuhle's team are offering an exciting brand of basketball that has seen the Pioneers win five of their first seven games.

"If we can put a good product on the court, it only helps the fans to keep coming back," she said. "We've had a lot of compliments about how hard the girls have played this year."

The Pioneers will have to keep playing hard as they have some very tough games coming up. UWP is currently 2-1 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, generally regarded as the strongest non-scholarship league in the nation.

UWP was predicted for seventh in the nine-team conference race after losing three all-conference players from last year's club.

"We really didn't know what to expect. I didn't think it was going to be a rebuilding year because we had so much experience in our junior class," Kuhle said. "As we went through the course of preseason practices, it became apparent this really was a transition in terms of roles for many of them. They weren't used to being scorers. It's a learning process, and I think they are coming along fine. We're 5-2, and we haven't played our best basketball yet."