The women’s team celebrated the end of July workouts in 1980s style. Asiah Dingle tutu, however, is timeless.  One player’s father commented in a tweet, “Hard work and fun?? Something special happening @KentStWBB. Sooo happy my kid is part of it. (Photo from KSU Twitter feed.)

The Kent State women will head to Vancouver, Canada, in two weeks for the team’s first international summer competition in school history.

The Flashes will travel from Aug. 9-16 and play three college teams, along with seeing the sights in the Canadian West.

The NCAA allows teams to take an international summer trip every four years. The KSU men’s team has made some trips — most recently to Costa Rica in 2017. I have a memory of the volleyball team going overseas some years ago but couldn’t find anything in a quick online search.

I caught coach Todd Starkey on the phone Friday. He was just back from his last big recruiting trip of the summer (he took two calls from recruits during the interview). He said he had concentrated so much on recruiting and summer workouts that he didn’t know all the details about the trip — including the teams the Flashes were playing.

“We going to break down all the Canada stuff at a staff meeting Monday,” he said.

KSU will play three games against college teams.

“That’s just about the right amount, so you’re not exhausted,” Starkey said. “From what I understand, it will be a good mix of games — kind of three levels of teams.”

The trip, he said, is something that has been in the works for several years.

“As we were trying to build our program, this is one of the things that we really wanted to we accomplish the first four years,” he said.

The cost of the trip, Starkey said, was spread over two years’ budgets and included some money the team had saved and raised in the last few years. (He didn’t want to say how much it was costing. I’d estimate it will be well into the tens of thousands but considerably less than European trips that other schools have taken.)

“It’s really not overextending the budget at all,” he said.

The trip gives the team extra practice time and game experience beyond what it could get on campus, where the NCAA limits coaches to four hours a week of practice time with players. The team can spend another four hours on organized conditioning.

On the trip, they can practice just as if it were in the middle of the season.

“It won’t be like the hyper intense atmosphere that we have in February and March,” he said. “We don’t want to bury them — just build team rapport and competitive chemistry.

“The timing is great for us. We have a really good core of returning players, along with three freshmen and a transfer. It’s a chance to get experience practicing and playing together before the season starts.”

There also will be sightseeing and team bonding, the coach said.

“It’s a location that a lot of our players would never necessarily choose to go to, and  it’s one of the most beautiful places anywhere,” Starkey said.

Starkey said he plans to do such a trip every four years.

“Virtually everybody is doing some sort of an international experience for players,” he said. “Teams that aren’t doing something can eventually fall behind in recruiting.”

 

 

CMU’s Sue Guevara coached for a total of 39 years at seven different schools, including seven as head coach at Michigan and 12 as head coach at Central. (Photo from Central Michigan website.)

Central Michigan coach Sue Guevara, one of the MAC’s longest serving and most successful coaches, announced she was retiring last week.

Central had won three straight regular season MAC championships under Guevara. Her 2017-18 team was one of the most successful in league history, going 30-5 and reaching the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. In 12 years at CMU, Guevara went 216-151 and won four MAC championships and three MAC tournaments.

The timing of her retirement was unusual; she been in charge of summer practices and camps and was recruiting players as late as last month. But she said in a press release that retirement was something she had been thinking about since the end of last season. She just turned 65, by far the oldest of MAC women’s coaches.

Guevara’s recruiting had been outstanding in the last eight years or so. This year’s graduating class included MAC player of the year Reyna Frost and Presley Hudson, one of the best three-point shooters in league history. (Presley won the three-point shooting contest for women and men at this year’s NCAA tournament.) The 1917-18 MAC player of the year was Central’s Tinara Moore. In 2014, Chrystal Bradford was league player of the year and the No. 7 pick in the WNBA draft. That was the highest ever for a MAC player.

The new Central coach is Heather Oesterte, Guevara’s associate head coach for seven years and an assistant two years before that. Oesterle had been a player for Guevara when Guevara was head coach at Michigan in the early 2000s.

That’s obviously great for continuity in recruiting and system of play for Central Michigan. It’s no guarantee of success. Jennifer Roos was the top assistant to Curt Miller when Bowling Green dominated the MAC in the mid-2000s. Roos had two really good years, including a 30-5 season with one of the MAC’s best teams ever in 2013-14. Her teams never won more than 11 games after that, and she was fired after the 2017-18 season.

The only other time I can remember a MAC assistant or associate moving up was when Melissa Jackson replaced Jodi Kest at Akron after the 2017-18 season. Kest “retired”; she had won more games than any other Akron coach but went 9-21 her last two season. Kest  was an assistant at Division II Lynn University in Florida in 2018-19 and just became an assistant at Division I High Point University in North Carolina.

Jackson went 16-15 in her first season, but Akron was 7-11 in the MAC.

I spent some time comparing league coaches’  records. Here’s what I found:

MAC coaches’ records while in league

(Listed by overall winning percentage.)

• BOB BOLDON, Ohio. 130-64 (.670). One overall MAC championship, one tournament title, three MAC East titles. One NCAA appearance, three WNIT bids (four wins). Starting seventh year.
• TRICIA CULLOP, Toledo. 241-123 (.662). One MAC championship,  one MAC tournament title. four MAC West titles, one NCAA appearance, seven WNIT bids (WNIT title in 2011-11, 11 total WNIT wins). 13^th year.
• FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK, Buffalo. 142-85 (.626). Two MAC tournament championships, one MAC East title. Three NCAA tournament appearances (won three games and reached Sweet 16 in 2017-18), One WNIT bid. Eighth year.
• LISA CARLSEN, Northern Illinois. 66-49 (.573). One WNIT appearance. Fifth year.
• BRADY SALLEE, Ball State. 128-98 (.547). Six WNIT appearances. Ninth year.
• TODD STARKEY, Kent State. 52-45 (.536). One MAC East title. Two WNIT appearances. Fourth year.
• MELISSA JACKSON, Akron, 16-15 (.516), Second year.
• SHANE CLIPFEL, Western Michigan. 80-79 (.503). One WNIT appearance. Eighth year.
• FRED CASTRO, Eastern Michigan. 31-62 (.333). Fourth year.
• ROBYN FRALICK, Bowling Green. 9-21 (.300). Second year.
• HEATHER OESTERTE, Central Michigan. 0-0. First year.
• DEUNNA HENDRIX, Miami. 0-0. First year.

GUEVARA’s .587 winning percentage had been third among current coaches. Her 12 year was second longest.

Coaches’ overall winning percentage (at current and previous schools) are quite similar. Biggest exception is BG’s Fralick at .824. She went 104-3 with a national championship and two other Final Four appearances at Division II Ashland. Hendrix’s record at High Point University was 125-93 (.573) with two WNIT appearances.

Jackson, Clipfell, Castro and Oesterte have been head coaches only in the MAC.

IT’S NO WONDER the league is the best its ever been. Eleven of 12 coaches have winning records. (That counts Guevara and includes Fralick’s and Hendrix’s overall records.)

Current coaches (including Guevara) have won 24 WNIT and five NCAA games (two by Guevara and three by Legette-Jack) while they were in the MAC.

Kent State will play three Big Ten teams this season. In addition to a home game against Ohio State announced Friday, the Record-Courier said on Saturday that Michigan and Purdue are also on the schedule.

The Michigan game is part of the Akron Classic, where Kent and Akron play the same teams over two days. It alternates between Akron and Kent. Last year the event was in mid-November in Kent.

Michigan was 22-12 last season. It lost two of its top three scorers, including 6-5 all-Big Ten center Hallie Thome. But it looks as if it has a good incoming freshman class.

Kent State played well but lost against the Wolverines in the 2017 WNIT and in a non-conference game in December 2017.

The game at Purdue, which was 19-15 last season, will be Dec. 8, according to the Purdue website. The Boilermakers have lost three times to MAC schools in the last two years — twice to Ohio twice and once to Ball State. They beat Central Michigan and Miami twice and Ball State once in the same time period.

In the Record-Courier story by Allen Moff, KSU coach Todd Starkey called the December game against OSU “a great matchup.”

“Our goal is to see if we can fill the M.A.C. Center, put on a great game and create a lot of buzz for Kent State and Ohio State women’s basketball,” he said. “It will be a great road game for Ohio State. We’re two teams in Ohio with great traditions that are trying to re-establish ourselves. Maybe this will spark a little in-state rivalry.”

“Being able play Power 5 schools at home is the next step toward increasing our profile. When we play those games, we’re not just trying to make money, we’re trying to compete and put ourselves in position to win.”

Moff called this year’s OSU game “arguably the most intriguing non-conference home game in program history.”

I can’t argue with that.

Moff’s story also said that KSU would play a return game at Ohio State in 2020.

The Flashes also will play this season at Youngstown State and Duquesne. KSU beat Youngstown and lost to Duquesne in Kent last season.

KSU’s full schedule is expected to be released in the next week or so.

The Kent State women will play Ohio State for the first time since 1981.

The game will be at the M.A.C.C in Kent on Nov. 21. Word came of the game when OSU’s non-conference schedule was announced Thursday. Kent State’s schedule should be announced in the next few weeks. Last season it was announced Aug. 4

Ohio State finished 14-15 last season, 10-8 and fifth in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes lost to Moorhead State in the first round of the WNIT. Last year’s team had lost all five starters from the previous year, including Kelsey Mitchell, the No. 2 scorer in OSU history.

So the Buckeyes put together a roster with five graduate transfers, three freshmen, two seniors and a junior. 

This year’s freshman class is ranked in the top four in the country and includes five players ranked in the top 65 by ESPN. Highest ranked is No. 6 Kierstan Bell, a McDonalds’s All-American from Canton McKinley. Bell, a 6-1 guard, was Ohio player of the year three time. She averaged 28.8 points a game as a senior and 33.3 as a junior. The only other high school player ever to be player of the year three times is LaBron James

The Buckeyes also return leading scorer Dorka Juhasz, a 6-4 sophomore who averaged 11.7 points a game and 5-10 sophomore guard Janai Crooms, their No. 3 scorer at 8.8 points a game.

Kent State lost to Ohio State five times between 1977 and 1981, when both were members of the Ohio Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women. Kent State’s first varsity team played in 1974-75.

The last time KSU played a power conference team at home was in 2015, when former coach Danny O’Banion’s last team lost to Minnesota 85-73. The Flashes played North Carolina State and North Carolina on the road last year, Michigan on the road and Stanford in a holiday tournament in 2017-18, and Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan on the road in 2016-17 and Baylor in a holiday tournament that year.

KSU lost all of those games. Closest was a 67-60 loss to Michigan in the first round of the WNIT in 2017. The Flashes led North Carolina last season by two points with four minutes to go but lost 73-60.

The last time Kent State defeated a power conference team was in 2006, when the Flashes beat Washington 81-78 in overtime in Kent.

Kent State returns 84 percent of its scoring from last year’s 20-13 team, including its top four scorers — senior guard Megan Carter (15.9 points per game), sophomore guard Asiah Dingle (12.9), sophomore forward Lindsay Thall (10.1) and senior forward Ali Poole (8.8). Its three income freshmen include first-team Kentucky all-state forward Nila Blackford, and second-team all-Ohio guards Clare Kelly and Katie Shumate.

December in Vegas

Also announced this week was Kent State’s participation in the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic Dec. 21-22. Las Vegas seems to have half a dozen December tournaments; this one is a decidedly mid-major affair.

On Saturday, Dec. 21, Kent State will play Georgia Southern, a Sun Belt Conference team that is rebuilding with a new coach after a 7-22 season.

The next day the Flashes play Troy, another Sun Belt team that returns three starters from a group that went 22-9 last season and made the WNIT.

Both games are at noon Las Vegas time. That’s 9 a.m. in Kent. They’re at the South Point Hotel and Casino.

Other teams in the competition — it’s not really a tournament — are Toledo from the MAC (21-12 last season), Pacific of the West Coast Conference (19-12), St. Francis Brooklyn College (18-13), Toledo plays Troy and Pacific.

Here’s the release on the tournament.

The recruiting trail

Coach Todd Starkey and his three assistants all tweeted or retweeted in June that Kent State had received a verbal commitment from a recruit. But they’re not allowed to name a recruit who hasn’t signed a national letter of intent, which happens in November. Usually the high school player, her high school or AAU team will tweet a commitment; I haven’t seen anything on Twitter or elsewhere online. We don’t even know which year she’ll enroll, though I would think would be the freshman class entering in 2020.

One player in that class had announced her commitment in March, 5-4 guard Casey Santoro from Bellevue High School in northwestern Ohio. She was district player of the year and first-team all-Ohio in both her sophomore and junior seasons and averaged 22 point a game last year.

Another rising high school senior tweeted a picture of her and KSU coaches on a recruiting visit last month. In the same tweet, Rachel Loobie also included pictures of herself at Bowling Green and Miami. The next week she visited Central Michigan. I’ve been following Loobie on Twitter since she got a KSU offer last year, and she must have a dozen Division I offers, mostly from mid-major schools. She’s a 6-foot forward from Franklin High School in Indianapolis who averaged 10 points and 11 rebounds her junior year.

The summer AAU basketball season is in its last month. Kent State coaches are on the road at four different sites, including a 1,200 (!) team event in Louisville. AAU has become a primary source of recruiting because coaches can see many players in a weekend, and the season doesn’t overlap the college season — as high school schedules do.

Kent State should have at least four scholarships to give for 2020. Seniors Carter, Poole and Sydney Brinlee are graduating. The Flashes had one scholarship left over from the this year. Junior Linsey Marchese, a 6-4 transfer from Indiana, will be eligible that season after sitting out this season because of NCAA transfer rules.

Golden is back in a new role

Alexa Golden, a four-year starter who got both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in four years, is back at Kent as a graduate assistant for the women’s team. It was a move that had been in the works for months. In an interview with Golden’s home town newspaper, Starkey said he had given her “homework” to interview KSU assistants as she applied for the job and to report on her findings to him. All current KSU assistants started as GAs.

Golden also was named Kent State’s nominee for the 2019 NCAA Woman of the Year award, which goes to athletes in any sport who “distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership. Now the MAC and other leagues pick two member nominees, then the NCAA cuts it to 30, then a selection committee picks three finalists from each division. National winner is named in October.

A shorter shot clock reset

The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Committee ratified a recommendation that the shot clock be reset to 20 seconds after an offensive rebound or a foul in the front court. It had been reset to the full 30 seconds. The idea is “enhance the pace of the game…because a full 30-second shot clock is not needed since the offensive team is already in the front court.”

In another small rule change, the shooting team would get possession of the ball after two-shot technical fouls.The ball had been going to the team that would have had possession before the technical.

In a potentially major rule change, women will experiment with a 22 foot, 1 3/4-inch three-point line in the WNIT and other postseason tournaments in 2020. Current distance is about 17-inches closer. The new line would be the same as international distance.

Men’s teams are going to the new distance for all play this season. It’s a pretty good guess the women will increase the distance in 2020-21.

The NCAA also tinkered with transfer rules to clarify and tighten the reasons a player could get immediate eligibility when switching teams. Some critics had said that it seems as if high-profile players got special consideration. Here’s the USA Today story on that.

In April, the NCAA rejected a rule that would have tightened requirements for graduate transfers. It also made small changes to other transfer rules. Walk-ons, for example, will not have to sit out a season if they transfer. Here’s the NCAA release and an SBNation story on the changes.