The score was Kent State 77, Bradley 52.

77 points are more than Kent State scored in all except three of its games in the last five seasons.

52 points are fewer than Kent State allowed in all except 10 of the 146 games in those years.

The 25-point margin was the biggest for Kent State since Dec. 21, 2010, when the Flashes beat Florida Atlantic by 29. That year was the last winning season for Kent State’s women’s basketball team.

It was quite a debut for new Kent State coach Todd Starkey.

He brushed off the comparisons.

“I’m not going to compare us to what’s happened here,” he said. “I have in my mind what I think is a good Division I team, and that’s what I’m comparing us against.”

Still, the coach agreed, “it was a good start.”

Kent State took a 17-13 lead after the first quarter, then outscored Bradley 26-12 in the second.

The defensive effort Starkey has been preaching since he was named head coach in April was evident in the first half. Bradley made 10 of 30 shots and 3 of 13 three-point shots. The Braves had major problems running their offense or finding open players to pass to.

Starkey was most impressed with some adjustments his team made.

“We weren’t closing on their first three-point shots,” he said. “Leti Lerma has five rebounds in the first quarter. They listened to what the coaches told them and made the adjustments.”

Bradley was 1 for 11 on the rest of its three-pointers. Lerma, Bradley’s only senior and leading rebounder, had three rebounds after the first quarter.

KSU senior Larissa Lurken led the team with 22 points. McKenna Stephens had 12 and freshman Ali Poole 11 in her first college game.

Jordan Korinek, last year’s leading scorer and a preseason all-MAC East selection, had 7 points and 3 rebounds. It’s somewhat beyond comprehension for Kent to win by 25 points when its best player has an off night.

Bradley will hardly be the best team Kent State plays this year. The Braves were 9-22 last year. Still, they beat KSU 68-60 at Bradley and were fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference in defense, allowing 61 points a game.

Lurken had 12 points at halftime on 3 of 6 shooting and 4 of 6 foul shots. She struggled more shooting in the second half, but Starkey was pleased with the way she played through it.

“She kept playing hard, she rebounded, she played defense,” the coach said. “That’s what we’ve been preaching to do when the shots don’t fall.”

Lurken, who has started almost every game in her four years on campus, was thrilled in her postgame interview on Golden Flash iHeart radio.

“What we worked on in practice translated to the game,” she said. “We really executed in the first half. It feels really good.”

Lurken finished with two three-pointers in three shots, five rebounds, two assists and a steal. She had just one turnover.

As a team, KSU had 14 turnovers, just five in the second half. A year ago, the Flashes had 24 turnovers against Bradley and averaged 18 per game. Bradley made 19 turnovers in Friday’s game.

Poole made 5 of 15 shots (4 of 6 in the first half) and shared the lead in rebounds for the Flashes with 6. Guard Alexa Golden also had six rebounds along with two blocked shots and two steals.

Poole’s first college game, she said, was “surreal at the beginning, then it was just playing basketball.”

Kent State’s third quarter was by far its weakest. The Flashes made just 5 of 18 shots and were outrebounded 17-11. Still, they scored 18 points, the same as Bradley.

“They played hard and answered,” Starkey said. “It was defensive effort. They got stops.”

Notes:

• The Flashes made 43 percent of their shots — 59 percent in the first half, 31 percent in the second. They made 6 of 17 three-pointers. Bradley made 18 of 58 shots for 31 percent.
• KSU outrebounded the Braves 44-38, with five players having at least five rebounds. Poole and Golden had six, and reserve forwards Chelsi Watson and Zenobia Bess and point guard Naddiyah Cross had five.
• Cross also had six assists, nine points and three steals. Korinek also had three steals. Overall, the Flashes had 14 steals.
• Stephens and Cross had the play of the game at the end of the third quarter. With a half second to go, Cross threw an inbound pass from under the basket to Stephens, who caught it in the air six feet from the basketball and shot in one motion. (“I’ve never seen McKenna jump that high,” Starkey said with a smile.)
• Stephens made 5 of her 6 shots, including a three-pointer, and had three rebounds and two steals.
• Kent State blocked five shots — two by Bess, two by Golden and one by Stephens. That’s more than in any game last season.
• Led by Poole’s 11, Kent State had 27 bench points. Bess and Megan Carter had six and Watson four.
• Starting lineup was Korinek, Lurken, Cross, Stephens and Golden. Lurken played the most minutes (30). Cross played 27, Poole 26, Korinek 25, Stephens 24 and Golden 22. Thirteen of Kent State’s 14 players got in the game.

Kent State plays again Monday when it hosts Eastern Kentucky at 7 p.m. at the MACC. Eastern beat Bowling Green 57-55 Friday at home. The Colonels return three starters from a team that was 18-12 a year ago. One is Jalen O’Bannon, a 6-1 senior forward who was the Ohio Valley Conference preseason player of the year. She averaged 17.2 points and 9.8 rebounds a game last season.

 

Box score

KSU website story, including postgame video interviews.

MAC scores from Friday:

• Ball State 88, Arkansas Pine Bluff 60
• Buffalo 61, UMass 47
• Miami 73, Austin Peay 58
• Eastern Kentucky 57, Bowling Green 55
• Kent State 77, Bradley 52
• Northern Illinois 90, Loyola Chicago 70
• No. 1 Notre Dame 107, Central Michigan 47

Details on the MAC website.

 

 

 

 

 

Kent State’s women’s basketball team played a dominant first half and went on to one of its most convincing  wins in six years Friday. 

The Flashes beat Bradley 77-52 in coach Todd Starkey’s first game. 

Detailed story will be posted soon. 

Most of the players are the same, but it’s a new coach, a new offense and a new defense for Kent State’s women’s basketball team as it opens the 2016-17 season tonight at the MACC against Bradley.

The game starts at 7 p.m.

The opponent is a good one to see where the Flashes stand in comparison to the team that went 6-23 last season. Bradley beat Kent State 68-60 in Peoria last season. Kent committed 24 turnovers in that game, which led to 20 Bradley points. KSU scored 11 points off Bradley turnovers. Even up those numbers, and the games is a toss-up.

Bradley has a lot of similarities to Kent State. The Braves, 9-22 last season, also have a new coach and new offensive and defensive systems. Three starters return from that team, which is picked to finish seventh in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Bradley’s strength last season was defense, where it ranked fourth in its conference. The 61.5 points a game the Braves allowed were the lowest for the team since 1978-79.

“They play extremely hard, especially on defense,” new KSU coach Todd Starkey said. He became KSU’s sixth women’s coach in April after Danny O’Banion’s contract wasn’t renewed. She was 21-98 in four seasons. Starkey had been an assistant for two years and Indiana and a successful Division II head coach for nine years before that.

Bradley and Kent State have exchanged video from last season, but Starkey said it’s not much to dwell on.

“It’s an advantage and disadvantage for both teams — not knowing each other,” he said. “Their system is different, our system is different, but there are still a lot of the same pieces.”

Junior guard Anneke Schluter, who led Bradley in scoring at 9.5 points a game last season, returns. She had 18 points, including four three-pointe baskets, against KSU last season.  5-foot-10 forward Leti Lerma, who had 19 points against Kent, is the only senior on the roster. She had 16 points and 11 rebounds in Bradley’s 62-45 exhibition win over Missouri-St. Louis Saturday.

Kent State didn’t play an exhibition this year but did go to overtime in a closed scrimmage last weekend against Cleveland State.  (Starkey didn’t give a lot of details; he’s not allowed to say much by the NCAA.) Cleveland State beat KSU 60-49 at Kent in the regular season last year.

The coach seemed encouraged by the scrimmage. He said he thought the team’s defensive intensity, something he’s stressed since he arrived, was good at times. He said the team did not shoot well but found a way to stay in the game with defense. Jordan Korinek, last season’s leading scorer and rebounder, had 24 points and 13 rebounds agains Cleveland State.

The Kent State offense fans see Friday will likely emphasize more passing than we saw last year and more screens to get the shooters open. Korinek will spend less time in the post and likely will shoot more jump shots and even a few three-pointers.

The defense will start with a (Starkey hopes) hard-working half-court man-to-man, with some trapping, zone and press mixed in.

Who’s going to play?

Starkey wouldn’t name a starting line-up, but here’s my best guess:

Korinek, of course, at one forward. She averaged 15.5 points last season and is a preseason all-MAC East selection.

Juniors McKenna Stephens or Zenobia Bess at the second forward. Stephens started almost every game last year after she recovered from early season knee problems. She’s got a good 15-foot jump shot and can shoot from longer.  Bess is a 6-1 transfer from Illinois State who played high school basketball in Gahanna. She sat out last season because of NCAA rules. Bess is a traditional  post player whom Starkey calls the best screener on the team. I’d bet on Stephens starting Friday because she has more experience.

Senior guard Larissa Lurken, who’s started almost every game since she arrived on campus four years ago. She was Kent’s second leading scorer last season and leading scorer two seasons ago. Starkey said she had shown her best defensive focus and intensity of practice in the last 10 days and argued she could be an all-conference player if her defense continues to improve.

Sophomore guard Alexa Golden or freshman guard Ali Poole. Golden, a defensive  specialist, started 17 games a year ago. Poole, the only true freshman on the team, has shown a good outside shot and good basketball sense in practice. Again, I’d bet on experience starting in the first game.

Junior point guard Naddiyah Cross or redshirt freshman Megan Carter. Cross has started at least 15 games in both her years on campus. Carter was injured in the third game last year but has shown an ability to make her own scoring opportunities in practice. Again, I’d vote for Cross — the player with the most experience — starting.

But the less experienced people will play a lot. And I couldn’t even guess who will be starting three games from now.

You can also expect Merissa Barber-Smith, the tallest player on the team at 6-4, senior forward Chelsi Watson and maybe senior Keziah Lewis to see significant action.

Starkey said 13 of the 14 players on the roster got in against Cleveland State. He’s also said he hopes to cut the rotation down as the season progresses.

How good is this team?

I really have no idea. It’s nice to have experience for the first time in years, but the new systems and coaches negate that somewhat. I also always remember a coach telling me years ago that a team that couldn’t win as juniors won’t necessarily win as seniors.

Bess, Carter and Poole all look like legitimate Division I players who will upgrade the talent level on the team. But losing James, the team’s third-leading scorer a year ago, will hurt.

I think Starkey has a system he believes in and will be a good in-game coach, something that could mean two or three more wins over the course of a year.

I would be overjoyed if this team approached a .500 season. More realistic, I think, would be about 10 wins (which would be three more than any season in the last five years). A contender in the MAC? Only if everything broke their way.

In a week, I’ll do my annual “keys to the season” column. But let’s see what a Starkey team looks like first.

If you can’t go

• You can see the video stream on live on kentstatesports.com/watch, starting at 7 p.m.
• You should be able to hear the game on Golden Flash iHeart radio at http://www.iheart.com/live/golden-flashes-radio-6068/, though the link wasn’t up to date earlier today.
• Live stats will run at sidearmstats.com/kent/wbball.
  In-game updates on Twitter will be at @KentStateWB.

 

Here’s a link to the KSU website preview of the Bradley game, which in turn has links to the team’s roster, schedule and 2015-16 statistics.

Here’s a link to a video posted today that summarizes Starkey’s approach to the team. It’s edited from the team’s preseason press conference.

Here’s the Facebook Live video of Thursday’s FlashTalk weekly interview program with men’s coach Rob Senderoff, football coach Paul Haynes and Starkey. The Starkey interview starts about 40 minutes into the one-hour show and includes discussion of the Bradley game and his newly announced recruiting class. Senderoff comes first in the show, then Haynes.

Here’s a link to the the Bradley website preview, which also links to its roster and statistics.

 

 

Kent State’s women’s basketball team has picked up another 2017 recruit in the current early signing period. But it lost a player who had announced in September she had verbally committed to Kent.

Added is Erin Thames, a point guard from Hopewell High School in Huntersville, N.C., a suburb of Charlotte. She’s a player whose stock rose over the summer and was also recruited by Rhode Island, Boston College, Cleveland State and Wisconsin. On Twitter, her AAU coach calls her a “true pass-first point guard,” a “floor general,” a player “who has grown tremendously” since the end of last year’s high school season. (He promotes his players hard, but that’s what AAU coaches do to try to get them scholarships.)

Off Kent’s list is Kaily “Kai” Kaimikaua, a shooting guard from Liberty High School in Henderson, Nevada, a city 16 miles from Las Vegas. Players decommit for various reasons — a better offer, grades, just plain second thoughts. Best I can tell, Kaimikaua hasn’t signed with any other school though she’s tweeted like crazy about other players’ signing (including the signing of another KSU recruit). What I hear is that she just had second thoughts about going to college two-thirds of the way across the country.

KSU’s other signees are players who previously had announced their commitments:

KASEY TOLES, a 5-9 shooting guard who can also play point, from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Georgia, about 25 miles from Atlanta. She’s the sister of KSU assistant coach Morgan Toles. Kasey was an all-regional and all-metro player who averaged 14 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and and 2 steals last season on a team that had no seniors and went 9-16.

AMANDA SAPE, a 6-3, 210-pound center from Bloomfield Hills High School outside Detroit. She’s also an all-state shot putter. Sape averaged 15 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks last season on a team that was 14-7.

MONIQUE SMITH, a 5-11 forward from Serra High School in San Diego. As a junior, she averaged 17.6 points, 13.3 rebounds, 6.7 steals and 2.7 assists on a team that went 20-10. She is a two-time all-section and all-league selection.

There’s more detail on those players in an earlier blog post. And here’s an interview with Starkey from September on his recruiting philosophy.

The group may be Kent State’s most national class ever. The only one I can think of that might come close is the first recruiting class of Bob Lindsay in 1989, which included players from Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio and New York.

Starkey has said that because Kent’s new set of coaches got such a late start, he had to “look everywhere.” Most of the signees were playing in AAU team tournaments this summer when Kent State first contacted them. (The late start came because most coaches today start making contact with potential recruits early in their junior years, often before. Starkey became head coach in April after Danny O’Banion’s contract wasn’t renewed.)

More on Thames, the point guard who was the last of KSU’s class to commit: I’ve seen her listed variously from 5-5 to 5-7 and about 125 pounds. Her statistics don’t knock you over — she averaged about 5 points, 2 rebounds and 2 steals in both her sophomore and junior years. Starkey said she came from a high school with three or four Division I prospects, so scoring and rebounding were spread around. The other teams who recruited her, though, are all power conference schools. Sometimes that’s the best way to tell the quality of a player. (Kaimikaua had similar statistics, averaging 8 points and 3 rebounds on the No. 3 team in Nevada last season.) Thames’ team had an 18-8 record last year.

Starkey said he didn’t expect to sign anyone else in the early period. But he did say he still had scholarships available and was continuing to recruit for 2017. There’s a late signing period for high school players in April. He also could add a transfer — including a post-graduate senior who would be eligible next year — after the 2016-17 season.

Here’s link to KSU web posting on the recruiting class. Here are photos, also from site. From left, players are Sape, Smith, Thames and Toles.

Kent State Friday posted a Facebook Live interview with coach Todd Starkey and one of the most intriguing players on the team, freshman Ali Poole.

Poole is a 5-11 guard from Carrollton High School and the only true freshman on the team. She looks to be the first long-range shooter the Flashes have had in four years to complement senior guard Larissa Lurken. Poole averaged about 18.5 points a game her senior year and scored more than 1,400 in her four years. She was twice player of the year in the Northeast Buckeye Conference and second-team all state last season.

Besides being a good shooter, Poole is a good athlete. She also lettered in volleyball and softball in high school. She’s practiced at all three perimeter positions at Kent State — including some time at point guard.

“She came in with strong basketball IQ,” Starkey said. “She understands the game and has picked up on defensive concept. She has a voice. She’s a natural at doing something that’s really important to us, and that’s really talking on the court and communicating.

“She’s very coachable -—not just attitude and listening but being able to apply what you’re being coached.”

Poole said she was adjusting to the college game.

“It’s faster, the intensity is really there, and it’s different to play with all really good players,” she said. “In high school everyone is pretty good, but it’s high school basketball.”

Poole said the new coach and his new system has allowed her to fit in.

“Most freshman come in and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got the learn everything that everyone else already knows,” she said. “(The new system) puts me more on an even playing ground, which helps my confidence a bit.”

The interview came shortly after what Starkey called “one of our better practices, especially in the last two weeks.”

“I thought we really did some things on the defense end, trying to hammer home the mentality of getting stops and really starting to figure out how important that is,” he said.

Both Carducci and Starkey talked of a “spirited scrimmage” at the end of practice.

 

The team has a closed scrimmage against Cleveland State this weekend. Starkey said he would be looking for “attitude and effort and focus — and what our defensive intensity looks like.”

Here’s a https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FGoldenFlashes%2Fvideos%2F10154259023183922%2F&show_text=0&width=400” target=”_blank”>link to the Starkey-Poole interview by Kent State’s Dave Carducci.

MAC previews

The Mid-American Conference this fall didn’t have its traditional media day, in which all coaches, a couple of key players and the media get together for a day in Cleveland. Instead they’ve been posted short video interviews about each team — “12 teams in 12 days” is the slogan.

Kent State’s was posted Friday. It broke little new ground. Starkey talked about the “opportunity to change our identify.”

Junior forward Jordan Korinek said the team chemistry was very good because every player from last season returned.

Senior guard Larissa Lurken, who has started on teams that went 18-71 over three years, said the key to the season was the team believing in itself.

“I think we’re a lot better than sometimes we think we are,” she said. “We have to believe that, believe in the coaching staff and believe in the system we run. If we push ourselves, we can actually get there.”

Starkey said the team’s goal was to get better every game and by the end of the season “be the team nobody wants to play in the MAC tournament.”

Here’s the MAC video on Kent State.

If you want to see a lot of MAC women’s previews, go here. You’ll see green squares at the bottom that you can click through to hear from coaches of all MAC teams. As of Friday, the league had posted eight, including Kent State. They’re all just three or four minutes long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The word from Kent State women’s basketball coach Todd Starkey is very consistent:

It’s a “work in progress.”

The team “has a long way to go.”

The players attitudes are good, but they’re having to learn a lot of new things.

Starkey has been at Kent State since April, taking over after Danny O’Banion’s contract wasn’t renewed after a 21-98 record in four years. Starkey had been an assistant at Indiana for the last two years after being head coach at Division II Lenoir-Rhyne in North Carolina for nine seasons. He was NCAA Division II Coach of the Year in 2009 after leading his team to a 27-5 record.

Wednesday was preseason Press Day for both basketball teams, and Starkey, senior guard Larissa Lurken and junior forward Jordan Korinek met with reporters (maybe five of us). I also got to watch an intrasquad scrimmage for two hours earlier in the morning.

Defense is a watchword

More than I had realized, Starkey is a defense-first coach. The team shot terribly in the scrimmage, but the coach was more unhappy with his first team’s half-court defense. He repeatedly pushed them to play harder, talk to each other more, to deny drives and entry passes.

“You’ve got to make something else happen if your shots aren’t falling,” he told the group during a timeout. “You play defense, you rebound, you drive to the basket, you shoot foul shots. You can’t be a one-dimensional player.”

At the press conference, Starkey said his offense was flexible based on his players, but half-court defense was a “basic principle.”

Korinek, named to the preseason all-MAC East team last week, said one of the biggest adjustments players were making under their new coach was “switching from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset.”

White 52, Blue 52

The two squads played two independent halves with game officials. The white team —  pretty much the first string at this point — won the second half 29-26 while the blue won the first 26-23. (See what I meant about shooting?)

First five players on the court were the same people who started the most games last season: Korinek, Lurken, sophomore guard Alexa Gordon, junior forward McKenna Stephens and sophomore point guard Naddiyah Cross. In the second half, freshman Ali Poole, redshirt freshman Megan Carter and redshirt junior Zenobia Bess switched to white.

Those eight would be my best guess at the rotation right now, perhaps plus senior forward Chelsi Watson and 6-4 sophomore Merissa Barber-Smith. (Watson, who shot just 34.2 percent from the foul line last year, looked far more comfortable and made every free throw she took.)

The blue team actually led most of the scrimmage. White took the lead in the last minute, then didn’t let blue get off a shot in the last 12 seconds.

Nobody particular stood out to me. Stephens’s 15-foot jump shot worked at times, and she had a couple of nice steals. Poole showed some nice three-point touch — mostly on the blue team. So did Lurken.

Korinek did not have a good practice on either offense or defense, probably not scoring more than eight points (there was no box score). Without her playing well, this team will struggle.

Korinek: Three-levels of offense

Starkey is counting on his 6-2 forward, who led Kent State in scoring at 15.5 points a game last year. But he’s going to use Korinek somewhat differently that the strictly in-the-post style she played last season.

“Jordan is a very good three-point shooter for a post player,” Starkey said. “We want teams to have to defend her on all three levels — around the basket, where she’s accustomed to scoring, and in the midrange, with her face-up game if teams zone us. But then she can stretch the floor and bring post players away from the basket  because she can shot the three.”

A freshman shooter, a sophomore defender

At the press conference, Starkey mentioned Poole as a player who’s likely to make a significant contribution in her first year. He said Barber-Smith — the tallest player on the team — was the most improved player, especially on defense and in rebounding. “She’s making life tough on Jordan in practice,” he said, which is good for both of them.

More noise from the leaders

There was a long pause from Starkey when I asked him after practice who his leaders were.

Korinek and Lurken are the logical ones, but neither is naturally loud.

“They’ve both done a good job of coming out of their shell,” Starkey said at the press conference. “When you have players who do a good job of leading by example, they also have to step up and be vocal when it’s time. Leadership isn’t always the loudest voice, but I think their teammates are kind of craving their ability to lead. They’re improving in that area and will continue to get better at that, no doubt.”

Korinek, a woman with 662 points in two years and a 4.0 average in special education, said it doesn’t come naturally.

“Coach Starkey has been having leadership meetings,” she said. “It’s just becoming more confident. I know what to say. I just keep it back a lot, so it’s just working on expressing what I have in my head.”

Lurken was a tri-captain as a sophomore and says one good thing is that almost all the team is back from last year.  “We know each other, and we know how to correct each other and how to speak to each other when we’re on the court,” she said.

Cleveland State for practice, Bradley for real

This weekend the team scrimmages against Cleveland State, a team it lost to by a 60-49 score last season. It opens at home against Bradley Friday, Nov. 11.

James is out for the season

Redshirt sophomore Tyra James, KSU’s third-leading scorer a year ago, is out of the season with a knee injury.

James, a 5-11 wing guard, missed her entire first year on the team with an injury to the other knee right before the season started.

She was hurt this fall before official practice started and had surgery about four weeks ago. She was was manning a clipboard on the sidelines at Wednesday’s scrimmage and actually was moving quite well on her feet.

James, one of O’Banion’s top recruits, started 12 games last season and averaged 9.5 points and 4.4 rebounds. When she didn’t start, she was usually the first player off the bench.

James was an archtype “3” position player (that’s current basketball terminology for the position also sometimes called a wing guard or small forward).

James could score in many ways — driving, posting up, midrange jumpers and three-pointers. She could even help bring the ball up court. (She also sometimes tried so hard to make things happen that she made mistakes. James led the team in turnovers and shot only 37 percent from the field and 53 percent from the foul line.)

So far in practice Golden, who actually started more games than James, and Poole have spent the most time in that spot in the lineup. Both are very different players than James; Golden is a defensive specialist and Poole more of a long-range shooter.

It’s possible for a player like James to petition the NCAA for what essentially would be a second redshirt season. That would allow her to play four full seasons. Both she and the coaching staff would have to want that; by that sixth year, she’d likely be well into graduate school.

Here’s the video of the full preseason press conference.