Bio

When Kathi Bennett replaced Carol Anhalt as head coach at UW-Oshkosh in August of 1989, she inherited a women's basketball program that was a consistent upper-division finisher in the WIAC but foreign to 20-win seasons, league championships and NCAA Division III postseason experiences.

However, by the time Bennett departed from UW-Oshkosh in April of 1996 to become the head women's basketball coach at the University of Evansville (Ind.), she left a program on the shore of the Fox River that was charted on the radar screen as an annual 20-game winner, WIAC champion and NCAA Division III national power.

Bennett's formula for bringing UW-Oshkosh to national prominence worked quickly. In fact, it didn't even take one season as the Titans posted a 17-7 record during her first year at the school, finished second in the WIAC and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division III Championship.

Led by NCAA Division III All-American and UW-Oshkosh Hall of Fame member Lisa Kirchenwitz, the Titans posted their first 20-win season in school history in 1991 and claimed their first WIAC title since 1985. The Titans went 21-5 on the hardwood that year and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division III Championship.

Bennett, a Stevens Point Area High School graduate, guided UW-Oshkosh to an 18-6 record in 1992, with another WIAC title and appearance in the NCAA Division III Championship. In 1993, the Titans posted a 16-8 mark and finished third in the WIAC.

The best was yet to come for Bennett and the Titans over the next three seasons as they fashioned an 83-6 record, registered three WIAC championships and made three quarterfinal round appearances in the NCAA Division III Championship. However, none of those accomplishments matched the 31-0 season of 1996, when the Titans won the school's first NCAA Division III women's basketball title.

UW-Oshkosh proceeded its 1996 season by compiling a 24-3 record in 1994 and a 28-3 mark in 1995. The Titans advanced to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division III Championship in 1994 and to the 1995 title game, where it lost, 59-55, to Capital University (Ohio) on the Crusaders' home court.

Paced by NCAA Division III Player of the Year Wendy Wangerin, Bennett's Titans finished the 1996 season perfect. In the title game of the NCAA Division III Championship, UW-Oshkosh defeated the University of Mount Union (Ohio), 66-50, before a NCAA Division III Championship-record crowd of 4,001 fans in Kolf Sports Center. Bennett was recognized that season as the Coach of the Year in the NCAA Division III by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.

Bennett's seven-year ledger at UW-Oshkosh is impressive – a 155-32 overall record, a 94-17 WIAC record, six NCAA Division III Championship appearances, five WIAC titles, 17 All-WIAC first team selections, two NCAA Division III All-America selections, and one NCAA Division III title.

Bennett, the daughter of former University of Wisconsin and current Washington State University head men's basketball coach Dick Bennett, resides in Bloomington, Ind., where she recently completed her third season as head women's basketball coach at Indiana University. Bennett is a 1986 graduate of UW-Green Bay.

Bennett was inducted into the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2017.