So what will Kent State’s new women’s head basketball coach have to work with?

Quite a bit, I think.

There’s more talent on the roster than on any team since Bob Lindsay’s 2011-12 team, which started five seniors and went 20-11. There more be more than even that. It was far from Lindsay’s best team, but most of us would take anywhere near that record at this point.

It all depends on whether a new coach can put the pieces together.

Let’s look at the likely roster:

The post

Rising junior Jordan Korinek was honorable mention all-conference. She’s on a scoring pace that’s similar to Lindsay Shearer and Dawn Zerman – two of the greats of Kent State women’s basketball history – and she’s done that on a team that scores far fewer points. Any coach would love to build a team around her.

McKenna Stephens, another rising junior, looked like an all-conference player herself in KSU’s MAC tournament loss. She seemed to hit every 12-foot jump shot she tried. She only got better as the season went along. I don’t think she’ll average near the 19 points she scored against Eastern Michigan, but if she could average 12, it would be huge.

Merissa Barber-Smith is the 6-foot-4 freshman who averaged six minutes a game this season. She saw some meaningful minutes late in the season and did OK in my eyes. Could she develop as well as Cici Shannon, KSU’s last 6-4 center? Barber-Smith may already be  stronger than Shannon was. There’s potential, but I have no idea how much it will be realized.

Zenobia Bess is a 6-1 junior transfer from Western Illinois and a graduate of Gahanna Lincoln High School. Her statistics both places weren’t huge – she played sparingly on a poor college team and was on a high school team with five Division I recruits. But outgoing coach Danny O’Banion told me on several occasions that Bess was sometimes the best player on the court in practice and someone with a high basketball IQ. O’Banion had no reason just to say that; it wasn’t for an article. Bess could be an X-factory on next year’s teams.

Chelsi Watson is the 5-10 (probably closer to 5-8) post player who most often backed up Korinek. Very much a blue-collar player, the junior college transfer was a hard worker and decent rebounder who could score on offensive rebounds. She has the highest vertical leap on the team. But at her size and skill set, she’s a role player. Most of the playing time Bess gets is likely to come out of her minutes.

Lacy Miller and Savannah Neace are 6-3 post players. Miller, who will be a senior next season was a walk-on last season who got a leftover scholarship as a junior. She played the opposing team’s post in practice and was a popular member of a close-knit team. But it’s unlikely she’ll be a factor next season; I also don’t know the scholarship was a one-year deal (technically all scholarships are, and who knows what a new coach’s attitude will be). Neace is a 6-3 freshman who suffered concussion symptoms before the season and had disabling headaches throughout the year. She didn’t play a minute. I don’t know if she ever will be able to. Before the season, O’Banion called her a “developmental project.” She was clearly the fourth of KSU’s four scholarship recruits this season.

Wings and shooting guards

Tyra James was the third of O’Banion’s “big three” scorers at the start of the season. A redshirt freshman who missed all her first year with a knee injury, she did finish third on the team in scoring but spent most of the second half of the season as the team’s first player off the bench. When I saw her in Kent’s exhibition game and season opener, I thought we were seeing KSU’s first member of the all-MAC freshman team in a long time. But she was inconsistent and had a tendency to force action, make turnovers and get down on herself when she didn’t play well. Still her statistics actually were a little better than Korinek’s were as a freshman. It’s hard to imagine any success for this team if she doesn’t develop into an above-average player.

Larissa Lurken has been through it all. She has started almost every game since she arrived on campus three years ago and has gone from a freshman who stood in the quarter and shot three-pointers to the clear leader of the team. She became an improved and different player every season and actually scored more on drives and foul shots this season than she did on distance shooting. She’s been Kent State’s only real three-point threat, something that’s hurt her and the team as opponents concentrated on her and ignored the rest of the perimeter. Whether it’s opponents’ defense or her own style, she can be very inconsistent. Two games after her brilliant 37-point, 11-rebound game against Northern Illinois, she went 3 of 15 against Miami. Still, any coach should love her as a senior leader.

Alexa Golden could have been on an all-MAC  freshman defensive team had there been such a thing. She was the key player in Kent’s pressure defense and match-up zone. She had at least two steals in 13 games and had five in one of the Miami games. Coaches had hopes she would score more, but she averaged 3.4 points a game. She did average 16 points a game in high school and showed some potential as a three-point shooter. A good coach can built a very solid team around people like her.

Keziah Lewis is the junior college transfer from New Zealand who averaged about 10 minutes a game. She was a big scorer in junior college but never scored much for Kent. I never quite figured out her role; her skill set is somewhat similar to Lurken’s and she usually spelled Lurken off the bench. Like Watson, I see her as a role player – not someone who will make or break the team like Stephens, James and Golden.

Ali Poole is the 5-10 guard from Carrollton High School who is – at this point – Kent’s only incoming freshman. She’s a big scorer – 18.5 points a game her senior year and more than 1,400 in high school. In a 100-29 tournament game, she scored 39 points, and had 13 rebounds, five assists, six steals and four blocks. She’s supposed to be a terrific leader. I’d say she’s Lurken’s heir apparent.

And point guard

And here is the position that will make or break Kent State and its new coach.

The Flashes definitely need a winner in this spot. O’Banion never found one. Her first (junior college transfer Ashley Evans) led the team in scoring (though at just 9 points) but wasn’t a great passer and had turnover problems. Her second – Mikell Chinn – was second in the MAC in assists but was such a minimal scoring threat that other teams barely guarded her.

This season we began with sophomore Naddiyah Cross, who played a lot last season when Chinn was hurt. Things started off well. She averaged about 10 points and five assists through KSU’s first five games and often drove aggressively to the basket. She seemed to be the key to the dribble-drive offense that worked well early in the season. Then I don’t know what happened. She never scored in double figures again. Her assist numbers were erratic – as many as 12, as few as 1 in games she played 30 minutes. She struggled with turnovers and fouls at times. I know she was banged up for a while during the conference season. But eventually she lost her starting job to…

Paige Salisbury, who was probably the only walk-on to start at point guard for Division I school. Salisbury was one of the best players in Brunswick High School history and might have gotten a Division II scholarship. Instead she walked on to Kent State last summer, paid her own way to summer school and became an integral part of the team. When she moved into the starting line-up, Kent started to play better – at least for a while. Salisbury isn’t fast and isn’t smooth, but she is steady. KSU’s offense – and, looking back, defense – worked better with her. Still, I just don’t see her as a long-term solution on a winning team.

Taylor Parker, a natural point guard from Detroit, is the fastest player on the team and showed potential a couple of times. But she often played out of control and made a lot of turnovers in the time she played. She’s a determined person – she tweeted early this month that she was going to take someone’s job away. In the best of worlds for her, a new coach could steady her.

Key person in this mix is probably Megan Carter, who was perhaps the team’s prize recruit this season. She was supposed to be as good on offense as Golden was on defense. She blew out her knee in the third game of the season and had her third ACL surgery (all on the same knee). She later had surgery to fix a shoulder she dislocated in high school and later reinsured in the Kent State weight room. She’s supposed to be on track to return to the court in June. Carter averaged 19 points a game in her senior year and had a reputation as a sure ball handler. Could she have the speed or Cross and the steadiness of Salisbury? Would she have made a big difference this year? Is she the key to next season? Ask me in December.

Will everyone be back?

A question during a coaching change is always: Are we going to lose players? O’Banion lost a key Lindsay recruit and eventually had a ton of transfers from Lindsay’s last recruiting class. She never at all clicked with the hand-picked point guard Lindsay was building the team around. And four of her own players – none of them key but a couple who would have helped – left the team after last season.

But…

Assuming the new coach doesn’t want to come in an clean house or comes in and immediately alienates players, I don’t see a lot of movement.

Everything I heard – from watching Twitter, from coaches, from players – said that this was a very close team. I think that at the very least, they’ll stick together to play for each other, the way soldiers fight for their buddies in the foxhole as much as they fight for their country. I get the idea that Ali Poole fits in that group as well as a high school student can.

James, Stephens, Bess and Carter have already used their redshirt year either because of previous transfer or injury. That makes it very hard for them to leave. Lurken is going into her senior year and is almost through KSU’s nursing program. The junior college players can’t easily transfer.

I see no reason a coach would want to force someone out. I know of no bad apples. And what new players is he or she going to bring in on April 1? Most 2016 recruits are long-since locked up.

The players know all the stuff I’ve written. They know the considerable potential they have and that a new coach with a new system could bring that out. They know what Bob Boldon did at Ohio with an inherited team in a not-dissimilar situation.

As I’ve said, I don’t know if Savannah Neace will ever be physically able to play college basketball. Being walk-ons, Salisbury and Miller have less of a stake, but they’ve been an integral part of a tightly knit group.

I could be wrong, but I think the roster on opening night in fall will be pretty much what it is now.

So who’s the new women’s basketball coach going to be?

Of course we don’t know. I’m pretty sure Athletic Director Joel Nielsen, who will do the hiring, doesn’t know.

But I can offer some thoughts on the kind of person I’d be looking for, along with a few names.

The criteria:

1A. A successful head coach at a school in a less-prestigious conference.

or

1B. A top assistant at a school in a more-prestigious conference.

The MAC was 11th in conference RPI this semester. So we’re looking at a conference that’s say, ranked 14th or below. That’s includes the Horizon League (Cleveland State, Youngstown State), America East (Albany, Maine), Summit (Indiana-Purdue at Indianapolis or Fort Wayne, Western Illinois), Missouri Valley (Indiana State, Southern Illinois). I mention those leagues specific for reasons we’ll hit later. Here’s a full list of all the Division I conferences.

And there are top Division II schools, a couple of them relatively close by. Here’s the current top 25 in Division II.

We all know the more prestigious conferences. The Big Ten is most obvious — KSU has hired a lot of Big Ten assistants as head coaches over the years. After that, maybe the Big East, Atlantic 10, American Athletic.

Akron’s Jodi Kest fits the first description. She was a successful head coach at Division II Ashland. O’Banion fits the second; she was the top assistant at Memphis.

And, of course, there are coaches with Midwest roots who went away and might come back. Kent State football coach Paul Haynes is a good example of that. He was an assistant at Arkansas when he was hired.

2. A coach in roughly the same recruiting area. The MAC is not a national conference. A coach from Oregon would be starting almost from scratch in building contacts among high school coaches. Maybe that’s less important because so much recruiting is done at summer camps, which have players from all over the country. But if you look at the hiring patterns in the MAC, they’re largely neighborhood hires.

3. A coach who’s strong on X’s and O’s. Neither Kent’s offensive nor defensive strategy has been effective. Part of that may be personnel, but maybe a different coach can bring a system that works with this set of players, some of whom are quite good.

4. Every coach has to be a recruiter, but it’s less immediately urgent at Kent State because the Flashes have already signed their lone incoming freshman. They’ll likely have only one senior starter (Larissa Lurken) next season.

5. Does the new coach need to be female? I think KSU would like her to be. But Nielsen has hired men to coach women’s golf and volleyball.

—

Names?

The most obvious to me is Youngstown State coach John Barnes. He’s finishing his third year there, about the time an ambitious coach may start to look to move. He’s 55-39, took YSU to the WNIT last season and has had them ranked at times in the Mid Major top 25. He’s previously the top assistant at Wisconsin Green Bay, one of the nation’s premiere Mid Majors, and was head coach at Division II power Michigan Tech for seven years.

Would KSU be too much of a lateral move? Barnes’ predecessor at YSU was Bob Bolden, now head coach of MAC champion Ohio University. He went to Ohio after three seasons at YSU.

Wright State coach Mike Bradbury has been there five years and has a top 25 Mid-Major team. He previous was head coach at Moorhead State and before that was an assistant at Cincinnati and Xavier.

Like Youngstown State, Wright State is an Horizon League school.

The best Division II school in the area is still Ashland, which is 27-1 and ranked fifth in the country. But Robyn Fralick just finished her first year as head coach there after being the team’s top assistant. That may be too little early to move. There are a lot of good Division II teams in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. I hope we at least look there.

Who knows, of course, if any of those people would want the job.

I don’t remotely enough about Big Ten women’s basketball to guess at top assistants ready to take their own team. Ohio State is very good. Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant is a former Eastern Michigan coach and likely would speak well of the MAC to her assistants. Maryland coach Brenda Freese actually was a Kent State assistant in 1994-95.

Big Ten assistants can be paid much more than MAC head coaches. Kent State coaches tend to be among the lowest paid in the conference. How much can KSU afford/be willing to pay?

Kent State might be an attractive job for a coach trying to make a quick splash. There are good players here – Jordan Korinek and Larissa Lurken could start for any team in the conference. There will be four scholarships open after next season, so there’s room for a good recruiting class. If a new coach could find a way to make the team click, he or she could be very successful. That’s what Boldon did at Ohio. His team went from a doormat as low as Kent State to conference champion in two years. And every starter on his first championship team was recruited by the previous coach.

Sometimes strange things can happen in a coaching search. Bob Lindsay, who won more games than any men’s or women’s basketball coach in MAC history, was actually the head lacrosse coach at Holy Cross when Kent State hired him in 1988.

And of course almost no one in Kent had heard of Danielle O’Banion four years ago. But in researching this article, I found a 2012 story listing top Division I assistants ready to move up. She was No. 24.

It wasn’t very much fun, the Danny O’Banion era. 21 wins in four years. Only once did KSU win back-to-back games. There were long losing streaks. There were glimpses of good play.

But in preparing this, I went back and looked at statistics for the four years. They were grim.

KSU was dead last in the MAC in scoring margin every year.

In four years, the Flashes were in the top half of the league five times out of 60 statistical categories. (I looked at (15 a year).  They were 11th or 12th 32 times – more than half of all categories. Even this season’s team – which I thought was decent at times – was 11th or 12th in nine of 15 categories.

No wonder it seemed so discouraging.

I think O’Banion leaves the program in better shape than she found it. I don’t think there was a single woman on that first team who was an above-average Division I player. I’m not sure there were three average players. Now we have Jordan Korinek and Larissa Lurken – both of whom will be 1,000-point scorers before they graduate. Tyra James’ statistics this season are in the same range as Korinek’s last season. Alexa Golden would have been on an all-freshman defensive team if there were such a thing.

I’ll talk about what we have coming back in another post. For now, here are some things I learned in the last four years:

1. Don’t wait until late April to hire a coach. That’s when O’Banion was introduced, and two recruiting seasons were essentially gone. The best player Lindsay signed switched to Bowling Green There Miriam Justinger  started three of four years. Another got tired of waiting and signed with Akron. Anita Brown ended up all-MAC this season.

The way basketball recruiting is these days, most juniors are close to being locked up by April. So Danny’s first real recruiting class had Lurken – and three others who are long gone.

By her third year, we had Korinek and James and McKenna Stephens. But half of O’Banion’s time was up.

I hope Joel Nielsen learned that he just can’t wait that long.

2. A good point guard is so important. We never had one who could score, get her teammates to score and not turn the ball over. Some players did some of it some of the time. Nobody did it consistently. The new coach is going to have to get one or develop one.

3. You don’t win basketball games these days without a three-point game. KSU had Lurken. Period. She took and made more than half of KSU’s three-pointers over three years. Teams keyed on her. And she is a streak shooter in any event – 11 out of 14 one game, 3 of 15 two games later. KSU was last in three-point baskets scored all four years.

4. Defense wins games. KSU was last in points allowed three of four years. Part of it was talent. Part of it, I think, was scheme. It took two-thirds of this season to realize that a match-up zone wasn’t going to carry this team.

5. Turnovers are death. KSU led the conference in them three of four years and were 11th the other. The number was masked a little this year because KSU’s pressure defense forced turnovers, but the Flashes still led the league in ones they made.

—

Two very good things I learned that had little to do with basketball.

1 . It’s possible to stay up in a down situation. O’Banion is the most relentlessly upbeat person I’ve ever known. At least to me, she always looked at things that were going right and the way things could get better.

2. Some thing are much more important than putting a basketball through a net. Danny O’Banion is alive. She beat Stage II lymphoma. What’s a won-loss record compared to that?

Kent State will have a new women’s basketball coach next season.

Women’s basketball coach Danny O’Banion will not have her contract renewed, the school announced Friday.

O’Banion just finished her fourth season at KSU. Her teams went 21-98 and never won more than seven games. She had been in the last year of a four-year contract.

O’Banion was hired in April 2012 to succeed longtime coach Bob Lindsay, whose contract also wasn’t renewed by Nielsen.

She went 3-27 in her first season with inherited players, two junior college transfers and a late freshman recruit.

Her team had its best record in 2013-14 when they finished 7-23 and 4-14 in the MAC, which tied Ohio and Miami for fourth (and last) in the MAC East.

While the teams improved in the last two years, their records did not. Kent State was 5-25 in 2014-15 and 6-23 this season.

Just before last season, it was announced that O’Banion had Stage II lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands. She coached the entire season while undergoing chemotherapy and said last spring that her cancer was in remission.

It was announced in February that she would receive the  U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Pat Summitt Most Courageous Award for women’s basketball for “extraordinary courage in the face of adversity.” (Summit was the legendary Tennessee women’s coach who developed Alzheimer’s disease at the peak of her career.)

O’Banion leaves a team that returns in its entirety next season, barring transfers. It includes all-MAC honorable mention selection Jordan Korinek, the team’s leading scorer, and three-year starter Larissa Lurken.

The team has one incoming freshman recruit, shooting guard Ali Poole, a 5-11 second-team all-state player from Carrollton High School. Zenobia Bess, a 6-1 transfer from Illinois State, becomes eligible next season, and freshman Megan Carter, a top recruit this year whose season ended in November with a knee injury, returns.

For 36 minutes, Kent State coach Danny O’Banion said, her Flashes executed their game plan “with all their hearts.”

They played 19-10 Eastern Michigan even for most of the game, but some lovely point guard play by the Eagles’ Cha Sweeney and a lot of missed three-point shots ended KSU’s season Monday.

The final score in the first-round MAC Tournament game was 73-60. The game was closer than that as Eastern pulled away with foul shots at the end.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this basketball team, and I’m extremely disappointed for our players,” O’Banion said. “They competed and executed. No one believed more than the 15 women in our locker room.”

Those four minutes, O’Banion said, weren’t consecutive minutes. They were a few lapses in an otherwise fine effort.

A key time came in the last two minute of the third quarter, when Eastern broke a 47-47 tie with five straight points on on a three-point play and two foul shots.

As the teams traded baskets early in the fourth quarter, Sweeney, the 5-foot-2 spark of the Eastern team, made three great passes to open players under the basket that kept KSU from coming back. Sweeney, named second-team all conference for the second straight year earlier in the day, had 10 assists and six steals, along with 14 points.

McKenna Stephens led Kent with with a career-high 19 points on 9 of 14 shooting. Most of them came on 12- to 14-foot jump shots. She also had six rebounds. Jordan Korinek, named honorable mention all-MAC Monday, had 16 points, eight rebounds and a career-high four steals.

“McKenna is the heart of this team from a confidence standpoint,” O’Banion said. “Today she was primed to come out. She’s a highly skilled shooter, and it’s been fun to watch her play herself into condition so she could go for 33 minutes.”

Stephens missed the first five games of the season after arthroscopic knee surgery. In February, O’Banion said that Stephens, a redshirt sophomore forward, was doing 15 minutes extra of cardiovascular exercise every day to build her stamina.

Kent State, the worst three-point shooting team in conferences, was 2 of 17 against Eastern Michigan.

The Flashes finish the season with a record of 6-23. Last year it was 5-25.

Barring transfers, all 15 players on the KSU roster will be back next season. The team has no seniors. It has one incoming freshman, a transfer who will become eligible next season and one of its top freshman returning from an injury that sidelined her early in the season.

“I’m excited about future of this team,” O’Banion said. “I see us in this next season getting over the hump.”

Notes:

• Eastern Michigan, now 20-10, will play Ball State in the MAC quarterfinals Wednesday.
• The Eagles have beaten Kent State 11 straight times and knocked them out of the tournament in the first round for two years in a row.
• Kent State outrebounded Eastern 31-28 and outscored them 28-20 in the paint. It outscored the Eagles — who are first in the MAC in turnover margin — 21 to 10 off turnovers.
• In the end, it was three-point shooting (Eastern was 8 of 15 to KSU’s 2 of 17) and foul shooting (Eastern was 17 of 26, KSU 10 of 12) and 18 EMU assists on 24 baskets that ended Kent State’s season.

Box score

First-round MAC Tournament scores:

• Fifth-seed Akron (18-12) 66, No. 12 Miami (9-21) 54.
• No. 8 Buffalo (17-13) 60, No. 9 Bowling Green (10-18) 44.
• No. 7 Western Michigan (17-14) 94, No. 10 Northern Illinois (11-19) 52.

Wednesday tournament schedule:

• Buffalo vs. No. 1 Ohio (24-5).
• Akron vs. No. 4 Toledo (17-12).
• Western Michigan vs.No. 2 Central Michigan (20-9).
• Eastern Michigan vs. No. 3 Ball State (21-8).

All-MAC teams:

• All-conference first team:  Akron’s Anita Brown, Ball State’s Natalie Fontaine, Buffalo’s JoAnna Smith, Ohio’s Kiyanna Black, Toledo’s Brenae Harris.
• All-freshman team: Ball State’s Carmen Grande, Bowling Green’s Sydney Lambert, Central Michigan’s Presley Hudson and Reyna Frost, Toledo’s Kayla McIntyre.
• All-defensive team: Buffalo’s Stephanie Reid, Central Michigan’s Tinara Moore, Eastern Michigan’s Janay Morton, Ohio’s Quiera Lampkins and Jasmine Weatherspoon.
• Full all-MAC listing is here. KSU’s Korinek (honorable mention) was the only Flash recognized.
• Player of the year, freshman of the year and coach of the year will be announced later in the week.

At its best, Buffalo has one of the best defenses in the Mid-American Conference.

The Bulls were most definitely at their best Saturday in beating Kent State 63-47 in the final regular season game. They held KSU to 14 points total in the second and third quarter, forcing 25 Kent State turnovers. The Flashes never really got a chance to run their offense.

The loss sends Kent State (6-22, 3-15) to Eastern Michigan for the first round of the MAC Tournament in a 5 p.m. game Monday. Eastern is 19-10 and 10-8 in the conference and beat the Flashes 72-51 at Eastern in January.

Buffalo held Jordan Korinek, Kent State’s leading scorer, to two points on 1 of 10 shooting through the first three quarters.

“Buffalo is a very physical team, and they were very physical on Jordan when she got the ball,” coach Danny O’Banion said in her postgame radio interview. “It affected her. She lost confidence, and the team lost confidence.”

Korinek, who averages 15.9 points a game, had eight points overall and 12 rebounds. She had four turnovers.

Buffalo held Larissa Lurken, KSU’s second-leading scorer, to just one shot in the first half. Lurken also finished with eight points on 3 of 7 shooting. She had five turnovers.

McKenna Stephens led Kent State with 12 points and eight rebounds, both equalizing season highs.

Notes:

• Korinek had two blocks, which equaled a career high. (She’s done it five times.) Her 23 percent field goal percentage was worst of the season; her 12 rebounds was second highest of her career.
• Junior College transfer Keziah Lewis had three steals – a career high – in 13 minutes, the most she’s played in five games.
• Buffalo, the MAC’s third-leading rebounding team, outrebounded KSU 43-35. In the first half, the Flashes outrebounded Buffalo 21-15. In the second half, it was Buffalo 28-14. The Bulls had 16 offensive rebounds in the second half.

Box score

Tournament seedings and schedule

Monday

• No. 9 Bowling Green (6-11 MAC, 10-16 overall) at No. 8 Buffalo (8-10, 16-13).
• No. 12 Miami (3-15, 9-20) at No. 5 Akron (10-7, 16-12).
• No. 10 Northern Illinois (4-14, 11-18) at No. 7 Western Michigan (8-10, 16-14).
• No. 11 Kent State (3-15, 6-22) at No. 6 Eastern Michigan (10-8, 19-10).

Wednesday (at Quicken Loans Arena)

• Bowling Green-Buffalo winner vs. No. 1 Ohio (16-2, 24-5).
• Miami-Akron winner vs. No. 4 Toledo (12-6, 17-12).
• Northern Illinois-Western Michigan winner vs. No. 2 Central Michigan (14-4, 20-9).
• Kent State-Eastern Michigan winner vs. No. 3 Ball State (13-5, 21-8).

Saturday results

• Central Michigan 78, Eastern Michigan 70, at Central.
• Ohio 77, Miami 58, at Miami.
• Western Michigan 64, Northern Illinois 60, at Northern.
• Ball State 68, Toledo 58, at Toledo.
• Akron 71, Bowling Greenn 61, at Akron.

Final MAC standings

As Kent State closes its regular season at Buffalo Saturday, there are really only two things to be decided:

1. Where are the Flashes going for the first-round MAC tournament game next week?
2. Can they win a game on the road?

So far the answer to No. 2 is no.

KSU (6-21, 3-14 in the MAC) has lost all 11 of its games away from the MAC Center this season. It’s only come close to winning on the road once – a 55-52 loss at Miami when it let a fourth-quarter lead get away and a three=point shot that could have sent the game to overtime bounced off the rim.

Kent State is 6-21 and 3-14 in the MAC. The Flashes have won one more than that they did last year. A win at Buffalo would equal coach Danny O’Banion’s best season. Her team was 7-23 two years ago.

The seeding is pretty simple. Right now the Flashes– 3-14 in the conference –  would be seeded 11th and play at Eastern Michigan. Best I can tell, there are only three ways – all unlikely – that could change:

• If they beat Buffalo and Northern Illinois (4-13 in the MAC, 11-17 overall) loses to to Western Michigan (7-10, 15-14), they would move past NIU to the 10th seed. They own the tie-breaker with Northern based on their 95-85 victory in Kent. If that happens, they’d play at Western Michigan.
• If KSU loses to Buffalo and Miami (3-14, 9-18) beats first-place Ohio at Ohio, Miami would move past Kent and the Flashes would probably play at Akron in the first round of the tournament. The odds of Miami, riddled with injuries and losers of eight straight games,  winning in Athens against the 23-5 Bobcats are about as slim as they come.
• It’s slightly possible that Eastern could move past Akron into the fifth seed. That would put KSU against Akron in a 6 vs. 11 match-up (assuming the Flashes don’t beat Buffalo). But the Eagles would have to beat Central Michigan, which is first in the West at 13-4,  at Central, and Akron would have to lose at home to 6-11 Bowling Green.

So it looks like a repeat of last year’s first-round MAC tournament game, when KSU led at halftime but lost at Eastern, 70-52. Earlier this season, Eastern (19-7, 10-7) beat Kent State in Ypsilanti, 72-51.

Buffalo is 7-10 in the MAC and 15-13 overall. The Bulls beat KSU 77-66 in Kent in January. They also are the only conference team to beat Ohio this season; they did it twice in the biggest mystery of the MAC season.

The game is at 2 p.m. and is on ESPN3. Audio starts at 1:45 on WHLO 640 and Golden Flash iHeart Radio. Live statistics are available through the Buffalo website.

MAC standings

KSU website preview

Buffalo website preview

When Kent State has played good defense…

When the Flashes have kept their turnovers under control…

When Jordan Korinek has been able to stay out of foul trouble and get the ball…

When the Flashes have been able to make more foul shots than their opponents…

Kent State has played some decent basketball this season.

All that came together in the Flashes’ final home game of the season Wednesday as they beat Miami, 59-53.

The win moves Kent State out of last place for the first time this season into a fifth-place tie with the Redhawks. Both teams are 3-14 in the MAC. Overall Kent State is 6-21 — one more game than it won last season with at least two to play. Miami is 9-19 overall.

Korinek, who has struggled with foul trouble throughout the conference season, had only two personals Wednesday and played 39 minutes, equaling a career high. She had 23 points on 7 of 10 shooting, 9 of 10 foul shots and eight rebounds.

The Flashes held Miami to 34 percent shooting and 5 of 25 three-point shots. The Redhawks are not a great offensive team – especially since they lost leading scorer Baleigh Reed to an ACL injury – but still it was the second-lowest point total allowed by Kent State this season. (Lowest was 50 in its win over Ball State.)

“I’m really excited for the players to have a chance to play and finish a close game,” coach Danny O’Banion said in her postgame radio interview. (Kent State is 2-6 in games decided by fewer than six points, and the only other close game it won was its opener against Colgate in November.)

“We’ve been knocking at the door…we’re still knocking at the door,” O’Banion said. “But it’s important for young minds to know they can win. It wasn’t easy. They had to earn it, and they got some confidence under their belts.”

Despite missing four foul shots in the last minute, the Flashes made 25 of 35. It was the most free throws Kent State had this year and was reminiscent of the start of the season, when KSU was outscoring opponents by 10 or 12 points at the foul line a game.

Twenty of the foul shots came from Korinek and Larissa Lurken, who made 8 of 10. Lurken struggled shooting at 2 of 15 but kept driving the ball to the basket to get to the foul line. She also had two assists and two blocks, including one at the end of the third quarter when Miami had rallied to within three.

Kent State was able to get the ball inside to Korinek as well as it has this season. The Flashes had 10 assists on 16 baskets and passes led to many of their foul shots.

Kent State outscored Miami 15 to 8 in points off turnovers – one more than the margin of victory. KSU had nine steals, including three by freshman defensive specialist Alexa Golden.

“Alexa had difficult job – she had to defend an active point guard – and did it in a disciplined way,” O’Banion said. “It’s a  job she takes a lot of pride in.”

Miami point Leah Purvis – probably the team’s best player with Reed out – had eight points on 3 of 11 shooting, 1 of 6 on three-pointers. She had just two assists in 30 minutes.

Notes:

• Kent State outrebounded Miami 38-35. Besides Lurken’s 10 and Korinek’s 8, sophomore forward McKenna Stephens had seven, which equaled her second highest of the year. Her 10 points were her third highest of the season.
• When Kent State lost to Miami 55-52 on Feb. 3, it made only 13 free throws and was outrebounded 42-36. It missed more than 10 layups. Korinek was 2 for 9 and only Lurken scored in double figures.
• Lurken now has 892 points in her three years at Kent State and is almost certain to become KSU’s first 1,000-point scorer since Jamilah Humes, who graduated in 2011. Korinek has 638 in two years (with two games to go). That’s about the same pace as Lindsay Shearer, KSU’s fourth leading all-time scorer, and Dawn Zerman, the team’s sixth leading scorer.
• All six games Kent State has won this season have been at home.

The Flashes finish their regular season at Buffalo Saturday. The Bulls are 7-10 and in third place in the MAC East. They lost at Akron 62-49 Wednesday and beat Kent State 77-66 in January. They’re also the only team in the league to beat Ohio this season, and they did that twice.

Miami Box score

Other MAC scores:

• Ohio (23-5, 15-2) 75, Bowling Green (10-16, 6-11) 58, at Ohio.
• Ball State (20-8, 12-5) 76, Northern Illinois (11-17, 4-13) 68, at Ball State.
• Toledo (17-11, 12-5) 76, Central Michigan (19-9, 13-4) 72, at Toledo.
• Eastern Michigan (19-9, 10-7) 63, Western Michigan (15-14, 7-10) 52, at Western.
• Akron (16-12, 10-7) 62, Buffalo (7-10, 15-13) 49, at Akron.

Ohio, Central Michigan, Ball State and Toledo have clinched first-round byes in the MAC tournament.

Right now, Kent would be seeded 11th (if I’m figuring the tie-breaker with Miami right) and play Eastern Michigan. But Eastern is tied with Akron, so the result of their final games on Saturday will determine Kent’s opponent as much as Kent’s final game.

Akron hosts fourth-place Bowling Green. Eastern plays at first-place Central Michigan. It’s possible Kent State could be seeded 10th if it beats Buffalo and Northern Illinois loses to Western Michigan. In that case, KSU would probably play Buffalo again.

MAC standings

I’ve been sick and again have to post a very abbreviated preview of tonight’s game.

KSU hosts Miami in its final home game of the season at 7 p.m. at the MACC.

A win likely would move Kent, which is 5-21, and 2-14 in the MAC, out of the 12th seed in the conference tournament to the 11th seed.

Miami is a game ahead in the MAC at 3-13 and is 9-18 overall. The Redhawks beat KSU 55-52 at Miami two weeks ago.

The difference in seeding is whether Kent would play at Akron or at Eastern Michigan in the first round of the tournament. But those teams are tied, too, at 9-7, so whom Kent plays is as much dependent on their final two games as its own.

The Flashes lost to Akron twice — by 12 and 10 points — and lost to Eastern Michigan by 21. Eastern has a better overall record (18-9) to Akron’s 15-12.

KSU’s final game of the regular season is at Buffalo Saturday.

Here are the game previews, including broadcast information, from the teams’ websites.

Kent State preview

Miami preview