I could have run another action photo of Jordan Korinek. You’ve seen dozens. But instead, here’s a charming photo I snapped of her and her 1-year-old nephew after the Akron game. The son of Jordan’s other brother, he’s been to several games this season. It’s clear she dotes on him.

Kent State senior Jordan Korinek added one more honor to one of the greatest careers in school history when she was named to first-team all-MAC.

It completes a pretty progression for the woman from Cuyahoga Falls and St. Vincent St. Mary High School. She was honorable mention her sophomore year and second team last season.

Korinek will finish her career as the fourth- or fifth-leading scorer in school history, depending on how much she scores in her final games. She has 1,770 points so far, 29 behind Lindsay Shearer, another great student-athlete who played between 2002 and 2006.

Shearer was a two-time Academic All-American who graduated from the College of Education with a 3.96 average. Korinek was on the Academic All-America team last season; this year’s team will be announced later this spring Korinek is also an education major. Her GPA is 4.0.

Korinek is among KSU career leaders in field goals, field goal percentage, scoring average, free throws made, free throws attempted, free throw percentage and rebounds.

Her 618 points this season is fourth highest in Kent State history.

Here are all of the All-MAC honors, announced Tuesday:

Player of the Year: Tinara Moore, Central Michigan

Coach of the Year: Sue Guevara, Central Michigan. (I voted for Miami’s Megan Duffy, who took a team predicted to finish last in the MAC East and guided it to a 20-win season. Guevara’s CMU team was loaded; she did was she was expected to do.)

Freshman of the Year: Cierra Hooks, Ohio.

Those three awards are voted on by the media. Coaches vote on the rest.

Defensive Player of the Year: Tinara Moore, Central Michigan

Sixth Player of the Year: Oshlynn Brown, Ball State

2018 MAC Women’s Basketball All-MAC First Team

• Presley Hudson, Central Michigan
• Tinara Moore, Central Michigan
• Jordan Korinek, Kent State
• Lauren Dickerson, Miami
• Courtney Woods, Northern Illinois

All-MAC Second Team: Moriah Monaco, Ball State; Cierra Dillard, Buffalo; Cassie Oursler, Buffalo; Stephanie Reid, Buffalo; Reyna Frost, Central Michigan.

All-MAC Third Team: Carmen Grande, Ball State; Danielle Minott, Eastern Michigan; Cierra Hooks, Ohio; Kaayla McIntyre, Toledo; Mikaela Boyd, Toledo.

All-MAC Honorable Mention: Courtnie Lewis, Eastern Michigan; Kendall McCoy, Miami; Kelly Smith, Northern Illinois; Jay-Ann Bravo-Harriott, Toledo; Breanna Mobley, Western Michigan.

All-Defensive Team: Carmen Grande, Ball State; Stephanie Reid, Buffalo; Tinara Moore, Central Michigan; Cierra Hooks, Ohio; Mikaela Boyd, Toledo.

All-Freshman Team: Oshlynn Brown, Ball State;  Mikaela Kelly, Central Michigan; Courtnie Lewis, Eastern Michigan; Cierra Hooks, Ohio; Gabby Burris, Ohio.

KSU players (from left) McKenna Stephens (10), Alexa Golden (24), Jordan Korinek (35),  Naddiyah Cross (1) and Monique Smith (25) celebrate as the clock hits zero in their overtime victory at Toledo. (Photo by Henry Palattella, KentWired)

In the end, Kent State’s seniors didn’t want to go out on a dud.

Two days after their worst game of the season, the 10th-seeded Flashes came from 17 points behind to beat No. 7 Toledo in overtime, 80-76, and advance to the quarterfinals of the MAC Tournament.

KSU will play 25-4 Buffalo, the second seed and MAC East champion, at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. (Exact time depends on when earlier games end.) Buffalo, which had a first-round bye, beat the Flashes twice during the regular season.

KSU senior forward Jordan Korinek overcame a miserable first half (one of five shooting and one rebound) to score 16 points in the fourth quarter. Her three-point basket with 47 seconds to go tied the game at 70.

“I couldn’t buy a basket,” said Korinek, the MAC’s second-leading scorer and the fifth-highest scorer in KSU history. “My teammates kept telling me, ‘Keep shooting.’

“In the back of my head, I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t go out like this. Don’t let your team go out like this.’ I kept pushing, and eventually the ball went in.”

Korinek finished with 21 points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists.

48 hours earlier, it had looked as if the Flashes may have given up on the season. They scored a season low in a 58-35 loss at Miami. Coach Todd Starkey was so unhappy with his team’s effort that he pulled all five starters after three-and-a-half minutes. (They did return.)

“In my 21 years of coach, this may be one of the most unexpected wins based on where we were just a few days ago,” Starkey said in his postgame interview on Golden Flash Radio. “I thought they were done after the Miami game. It just looked like they didn’t have anything left.”

But Monday, he said, “My gosh, they played so hard. They executed, they listened. . . my gosh, they finally listened and executed the stuff that we were trying to run. Defensively they talked. They made the hustle plays.”

(All that is how Starkey consistently described the team’s struggles in its 5-13 conference season, which was eight wins worse than last year.)

“I’m so happy for our seniors,” Starkey said, “that we’re able to give them this last hurrah in Cleveland.”

Besides Korinek, the game’s heroes were two guards who had struggled mightily as Kent State lost seven of its last eight games.

Sophomore Megan Carter had 24 points and six rebounds. (“A fantastic game,” Starkey said.) Carter had made just 25 of 106 shots (23 percent) since Kent State beat Toledo in January. Wednesday Carter made eight of 17 shots.

Senior Naddiyah Cross had 20 points (three three-pointers), four rebounds, four assists and only one turnover while playing 44 of 45 minutes. She had been averaging 5.2 points a game and had only scored more than four points once since mid-January. Her total was four points off her career high.

“I was thinking, ‘I don’t want my career to end without me working hard,'” Cross said. “Coach keeps telling us, ‘Give it all you can.’ We just had one of our worst games. Our coaches have coached us much better than we’ve played, and we just wanted to show respect for everything that’s been given to us.”

Cross and Starkey said a key to the game was to not make it complicated.

“I said the whole game, ‘You don’t have to do spectacular things. You just have to do the simple things well over and over again.‘” Starkey said.

“Sometimes you try to make the fancy passes,” Cross said. “But against this team that’s so aggressive, we have to keep it simple.”

Every play is important in an overtime game, but here are three critical ones:

• At the end of the third quarter, Carter grabbed a rebound with five seconds left, drove most of the court and hit a three-point shot at the buzzer.  “If she doesn’t make that, we go in down 13 and probably feeling sorry for ourselves, thinking, ‘Here we go again.'”
• When Korinek hit her three-point basket to tie the game, it was just her 21st three-pointer of the year. She’s made 203 total baskets. “I was kind of shocked that I shot it,” Korinek said. “But it felt really good when it left my hand.”
• After Toledo had scored to take a 72-70 lead with 4.8 seconds to go in regulation, Kent State called time and advanced the ball to the front court. As Cross in-bounded the ball, Carter circled around and cut down the opposite side for the foul lane. Cross loped a pass to her, Carter was fouled on the layup and made both shots to send the game to overtime.

So the Flashes avenged their loss to Toledo in the quarterfinals of last year’s MAC Tournament, the only game anyone on the KSU team has even played in Quicken Loans Arena. KSU was the third seed last year and had a bye into the quarterfinals.

“This honestly feels better,” Korinek said, “having to work for it and getting the win as the underdog.”

Box score

Notes

• Kent State’s record is now 13-18. Toledo ends the season at 17-14. It was the second time this season the Flashes had won at Toledo, the first a 62-55 game on Jan. 24. The last time before that Kent had won in Toledo was in 2007.
• The win ended an eight-game losing streak in the MAC tournament for the Flashes.
• Alexa Golden led Kent State with seven rebounds and had three blocked shots. She played 39 minutes on sore legs. (“Lex has played hurt all season,” Starkey said.)
• Statistics were as even as you’d expect in an overtime game. Both teams had 33 rebounds and 34 points in the paint. Kent State made 48 percent of its shots, Toledo 46 percent. KSU scored 15 points off 14 Toledo turnovers. Toledo scored 13 off of 13 Kent turnovers.
• Center Kaayla McIntyre led Toledo with 18 points. Mariella Santucci and Mikaela Boyd had 14 and Jay-Ann Bravo-Harriott had 11. Bravo-Harriott, a four-year starter and one-time freshman of the year in the MAC, fouled out with 3:19 to go in the fourth quarter. McIntyre played the last seven minutes of the game with four fouls.
• Toledo had an astounding 23 assists on 28 baskets, led by Bravo-Harriott’s seven. Kent State had 12 assists on 28 baskets.

Tournament results

In the other first-round games:

• No. 9 seed Eastern Michigan (11-19, 6-12) beat No. 8 Northern Illinois (15-15, 7-11), 84-77 at Northern. Eastern Michigan will play No. 1 seed Central Michigan (25-4, 17-1) at noon Wednesday.
• No. 5 Ohio (16-14, 9-9) beat No. 12 Akron (9-21, 3-15), 85-73 at Ohio. The Bobcats will play No. 4 Miami (20-9, 12-6) at about 2:30.
• No. 6 Western Michigan (17-14, 9-9) beat No. 11 Bowling Green (11-19, 3-15), 85-71 at Western. WMU will play No. 3 Ball State (24-5, 13-5) at about 7:30 Wednesday.

MAC Tournament website, including bracket, recaps and box scores of all games, and link to ticket information.

Down 53-36 with two minutes to go in the third quarter, Kent State came back to beat Toledo in overtime Monday, 80-76, to advance to the MAC Tournament quarterfinals at Quicken Loans Arena.

The Flashes will play second-seeded and East Division champion Buffalo at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. (Time depends on when earlier games end.)

The Flashes rallied behind 21 points by Jordan Korinek. The senior forward, the second-leading scorer in the MAC, had a miserable first half with just two points and one rebound. But she had 19 in the second half, including a three-point basket with 27 seconds to go in regulation to tie the game for the first time since the second quarter.

Guards Naddiyah Cross and Megan Carter carried the Flashes while Korinek was struggling. Carter had 24 points and Cross 20, both their second-highest totals of the season. Carter’s free throw with 47 seconds to go in overtime game Kent State a 77-76 lead. The Flashes played good defense and hit foul shots to win the game.

The victory game two days after perhaps Kent State’s worst game of the season, a 58-35 loss at Miami.

“In my 21 years of coaching,” KSU coach Todd Starkey said, “this may be be one of the most unexpected wins, based just 48 hours ago.”

Box score

DETAILED STORY, INCLUDING MORE QUOTES FROM STARKEY AND QUOTES FOR KORINEK AND CROSS, WILL FOLLOW

It seems like forever since Kent State beat Toledo at Toledo on Jan. 24.

The score was 62-55, and there still seemed as if there were hope for the Flashes’ season. The victory was probably Kent State’s best of the season; at that point Toledo was 13-7 and had the 65th best RPI in the country. Kent State was 10-10, and the win put the Flashes at 3-5 in the conference. We thought it might be the start of the team playing up to its prediction of second place in the MAC East.

Alas, it was the high point of the Flashes’ conference season. Since then, Kent State is 2-8 and stuck in 10th place in the MAC.

Toledo hasn’t had a much happier time. Since that game, Toledo has been 4-6.

The two teams meet Monday in Toledo in the first round of the MAC Tournament. The winner will advance to play East Division champion Buffalo in the quarterfinals Wednesday at Quicken Loans Arena.

Kent State and Toledo met in the quarterfinals of the tournament last season, and the teams were the hottest in the MAC. Kent State had won seven games in a row, Toledo eight of nine. The Rockets rallied from seven points down in the fourth quarter to beat the Flashes 67-63 and went on to win the tournament.

Both the Rockets and Flashes have four starters back from the teams that met last March. Toledo lost second-team all-MAC forward Janice Monakana. Kent State lost MAC player-of-the-year Larissa Lurken. It’s pretty clear which team adjusted better.

Toledo is led by 6-2 junior center Kayla McIntyre, who averages 16 points and 7.8rebounds a game. Junior guard Mikaela Boyd, just 5-7, averages 8.4 rebounds and 12.2 points, and senior guard Jay-Ann Bravo-Harriott averages 12.6 points.

In that first game, Kent State held Toledo to 31 percent shooting and 21 percent from three-point distance in perhaps their best defensive effort of the MAC season.

Kent’s Jordan Korinek scored 30 points in that game to put her average above 20 points a game. It stayed there until Saturday, when she equaled a season-low eight points in KSU’s 58-35 loss last Miami. She now averages 19.9.

Saturday’s game was Kent State’s worst of the season. The Flashes’ 35 points were their lowest of the season; the team looked listless, tired and unfocused.

Toledo is also coming off a loss, but a good one if there is such a thing. The Rockets pushed first-place Central Michigan before falling in Toledo, 72-67.

Toledo consistently draws 3,000-plus fans to women’s games. The Rockets are 11-3 at home this season; Kent’s win in Toledo in January was first in Toledo since 2007.

Monday will be a tough task for the Flashes.

To follow the game

Action starts at 7 p.m. Here are directions to Savage Hall if you plan on going. It’s about a two-and-a-half hour drive.

Video is on ESPN3. You can follow it online if your subscribe to ESPN on cable or by  satellite.

Audio starts at about 6:45 p.m. on Golden Flash iHeart Radio only. The KSU men’s game will be on WHLO.

Live statistics will be available through the Toledo website.

Kent State website, including links to statistics, roster, schedule/results, record book and more.

Preview from the Toledo website, including links.

Conference-game only MAC statistics, including standings.

The tournament schedule

MONDAY

• No. 9 seed Eastern Michigan (10-19, 6-12 in MAC) at No. 8 Northern Illinois (15-14, 7-11).
• No. 12 Akron (9-20, 2-15) at No. 5 Ohio (15-14, 9-9).
• No. 10 Kent State (12-18, 5-13) at No. 7 Toledo (17-13, 8-10).
• No. 11 Bowling Green (11-18, 3-15) at No. 6 Western Michigan (16-14, 9-9).

WEDNESDAY at Quicken Loans Arena

• Eastern Michigan-Northern Illinois winner vs. No. 1 Central Michigan (25-4, 17-1), noon.
• Akron-Ohio winner vs. No. 4 Miami (20-8, 12-6), about 2:30
• Kent-State Toledo winner vs. No. 2 Buffalo (25-4, 16-2), about 5.
• Bowling Green-Western Michigan winner vs. No. 3 Ball State (24-5, 13-5), about 7:30.

Games start about a half hour apart. Here is a link to ticket information on the MAC website.

FRIDAY

• Central Michigan game winner vs. Miami winner, 11 a.m.
• Buffalo game winner vs. Ball State winner, about 1:30 pm.

SATURDAY

• Champion game at 11 a.m.

All games are on ESPN3 except for the championship, which is on the CBS sports network.

Kent State’s 58-35 loss at Miami Saturday was a dispiriting end to a disappointing regular season.

About the only life the Flashes showed was a 10-4 run led by their bench to make the score 16-12 at the end of the first quarter. Miami had complete control after that.

KSU finishes the regular season at 5-13 in the MAC, the reverse of the 13-5 record that gave it an unexpected East Division championship last season. Overall the Flashes are 12-18.

They play on the road Monday in the first round of the MAC Tournament. Parings had not been officially announced at 5 p.m., but my reading is that KSU will play at Toledo. The Flashes beat Toledo 62-55 at Toledo Jan. 24 in their best conference game.

Kent State’s 35 points against Miami was its lowest since a 55-31 loss at Ball State in January 2013.

“We had a group that flat-out didn’t show up today,” coach Todd Starkey said in his postgame radio interview on Golden Flash iHeart Radio. “It’s disappointing. I was embarrassed by the way we played today.”

Eleven team members played more than 10 minutes as Starkey looked for any kind of productivity. He took out his entire starting lineup three-and-a-half minutes into the game after Miami jumped to a 10-2. That set of reserves — Tyra James, Zenobia Bess, Ali Poole, Monique Smith and Erin Thames — brought the score to within four at the end the quarter.

“They just played harder,” Starkey said. “We still didn’t play good basketball.”

Players shuttled in and out for the rest of the game — often five at a time. Every player available got in; freshman walk-on Margaux Eibel played a career-high 11 minutes, and not just at the end of the game.

But no one had success. No Kent player scored in double figures. Leading scorer Jordan Korinek had eight points, equaling her low for the season. Going into the game, Korinek was the MAC’s second-leading scorer and the fifth-highest scorer in Kent State history. James also had eight points. Bess had five. KSU’s four starters besides Korinek combined for eight points.

Now it’s up to the Flashes, who have lost seven of their last eight games, to try to regroup for the tournament.

“If they show up like this, our season will be over,” Starkey said. “If we decided to fight with purpose, then maybe we have a chance.

“Now that the regular season’s over, records don’t matter. That will be the message to them. If they want to play for something significant, all they have to do is show up and beat whoever we play Monday. And then we get to go to Cleveland and extend our season.”

Box score

Notes

• Miami finishes its regular season 12-6 and the fourth seed in the MAC tournament. Its 20-8 overall record is nine wins better than last year’s 11-21 season.
• Kent’s 35 points were the seventh fewest allowed by an opponent in Miami history.
• Miami’s Lauren Dickerson, the conference third leading scorer at 20.1 points a game, got into foul trouble in the first half and scored only six. Kendall McCoy, the Redhawks’ second leading scorer, had only five. Kayla Brown led Miami with 11 points.
• Kent State made 27.5 percent of its shots, second lowest of the season, and 2 of 15 three-point shots. The Flashes were outrebounded 35-25. They had been second in the MAC in rebounding margin.

After being very negative about his team’s performance for most of his radio interview, Starkey paused of a minute near the end, perhaps remembering how almost all of these players were on last year’s championship team.

“I do love these kids,” he said. “They’re great students, great student-athletes, really good people. We just didn’t come out with enough tenacity today.”

Other MAC scores

•  Buffalo (16-2, 25-4) 74, Bowling Green (3-15, 11-18) 38 at Buffalo.
• Central Michigan (17-5, 25-4) 72, Toledo (8-10, 17-13) 67 at Toledo.
• Akron (3-15, 9-20) 62, Ohio (9-9, 15-14) 59 at Akron.
• Western Michigan (9-9, 16-14) 85, Northern Illinois (7-11, 15-14) 66 at Northern.
• Ball State (13-5, 24-5) 88, Eastern Michigan (6-12, 10-19) 63 at Eastern.

Final MAC standings

Kent State scored just 35 points — a season low — and had no player in double figures as it lost its last regular-season game at Miami Saturday, 58-35.

The Flashes will play their first-round MAC Tournament game on the road Monday. Pairings will be announced later Saturday.

Kent State finishes the season 5-13 in the MAC, the opposite of its 13-5 East Division championship record last season. Overall the Flashes are 12-18.

Miami, picked last in the East, is finishes 12-6 in the MAC and is 20-9 overall. The Redhawks have the fourth seed in the tournament and have a bye to the quarterfinals at Quicken Loans Arena Wednesday.

Jordan Korinek and Tyra James had eight points each for Kent State. The eight equaled a season-low for Korinek, who went into the game as the MAC’s second-leading scorer and the fifth-highest scorer in Kent State history.

Eleven KSU players played at least 10 minutes as the Flashes searched for — and didn’t find — productivity.

Box score

UPDATE WITH QUOTES FROM STARKEY WILL FOLLOW

The regular season comes to an end for the Kent State and the rest of the MAC Saturday.

About all that will be decided is minor variations in seeding for the league tournament, which starts Monday at campus sites.

Kent State will definitely play on the road, likely as a 10th seed. If the Flashes win and Eastern Michigan loses, the two will tie and KSU will move up to the ninth seed because it beat Eastern twice in conference play.

If the Flashes sneak into the ninth seed, they’ll play at Northern Illinois, a team that beat them twice. If they finish 10th, they’ll play at Western Michigan or Toledo, with a long shot of playing at Ohio. KSU lost twice to Ohio in the regular season, once to Western and beat Toledo at Toledo in probably its best conference game.

Miami is guaranteed the fourth seed, ending a remarkable season for a team that was picked last in the MAC East. Much as KSU’s Todd Starkey did last season, first-year Miami coach Megan Duffy took pretty much the same lineup from the previous year and turned things around. The Redhawks are 11-6 in the conference and 19-9 overall. Last season they were 5-13 and 11-21.

Kent State has gone the opposite direction. Surprise winners of the East last season with a 13-5 record (19-13 overall), the Flashes are 5-12 and 12-17.

To follow the game

Action starts at 1 p.m. (an hour earlier than most Saturday games).

Video is on ESPN3. You can follow it online if your subscribe to ESPN on cable or on satellite.

Audio starts at about 12:45 p.m. on Golden Flash iHeart Radio and WHLO 640.

Live statistics will be available through the Miami website.

Kent State website, including links to statistics, roster, schedule/results, record book and more.

Preview from the Miami website, including links.

Conference-game only MAC statistics, including standings.