Kent State gets its second chance at Toledo this season at 5 p.m. Saturday as part of a doubleheader with the KSU men’s team.
One ticket gets you in both games. The men’s game. also against Toledo, will start about a half hour after the women’s ends, probably about 7:30.
KSU (4-16, 1-9 in the MAC) lost at Toledo 73-67 Jan. 6. The Flashes outplayed Toledo in three-quarters of that game, but that one quarter was a pretty bad. They were outscored 28-14 in the second quarter and were behind by as much as 15 points in the second half until they scored nine points in a row in with about four minutes to go in the game.
It will be interesting to watch the KSU defense. The Flashes went away from the match-up zone they had use almost exclusively this season to a man-to-man for much of Wednesday 55-52 loss against Miami. It was the second-lowest point total of the year for a KSU opponent and while Miami was missing its leading scorer and is not a great offensive team in any event, it was encouraging.
The Flashes held Miami to 36 percent shooting. KSU struggled at times with defensive rebounding and defensive rotation, both quite different in a man defense than a zone, and coach Danny O’Banion promised the team would work on cleaning up those areas before the Toledo game.
KSU lost the game on the offensive end, where it shot just 30 percent from the field — 9 percentage points below its season average — and 59 percent from the foul line, including eight critical misses in the fourth quarter. KSU forced 22 turnovers and had 12 steals, which tied its highest in conference play (and was four above any other conference game).
Toledo is 11-9, 6-3 in the MAC. All three of the Rockets’ conference losses have come on the road, but they beat Western Michigan 80-68 Wednesday at Western.
Guard Brenae Harris leads the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game. The Rockets are eighth in the conference in scoring offense and sixth in scoring defense and pretty much in the middle of the league in most statistical categories. They played a rough non-conference schedule, which makes their statistics look worse than other KSU opponents.
All four of Kent’s victories this season have come at home. Like most of the Flashes’ games in the second half of the season, it’s a game they could win if they play well.
Audio for the game starts at41:45 on WHLO 640 and Golden Flash iHeart Radio. You can get video and live statistics through the Kent State website.