Senior Ali Poole (right), who started 19 games last season, is still recovering from a knee injury suffered in practice this summer. Wearing a hefty knee brace, she participated in drills last week that required no significant movement or contact. Her status for the upcoming season is still unclear. (Details below.) Other player in photo is sophomore Lindsay Thall.

Perhaps for the first time, the Kent State women’s basketball team will play the marquee game in a doubleheader with the men.

When the women host Ohio State on Thursday, Nov. 21, they’ll play the 7:30 p.m. game — after the men play Division II Concord at 5 p.m.

In every other evening doubleheader I remember in 35 years of following KSU sports, the women always played first — before the crowds arrive.

But the Ohio State game is something special. The Buckeyes are the biggest name (men or women) to visit the M.A.C. Center this season and certainly one of the biggest schools ever. It’s also the first time the two teams have played since 1981.

When the game was announced earlier this summer, coach Todd Starkey said he dreamed of filling the 6,200-seat M.A.C.C.

The doubleheader is one more piece that might make that happen.

Biggest women’s crowd I can remember was about 4,500 in 2010, when the Flashes lost to Bowling Green in a “10 tickets for $10” promotion. I remember talking at that game to Judy Devine, KSU’s first women’s coach and later longtime top woman sports administrator for the university. She told me that there were crowds that large in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “A different era,” she said.

Other game times of note:

• The Flashes opener at Duquesne on Tuesday, Nov. 5, will also be the second game of a doubleheader. The Duquesne men play Princeton at 6. The KSU game will start at about 8:30 or a half hour after the men end. It will be the first game Duquesne women have ever played at PPG Paints Arena, the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team.
• The Flashes’ game vs. Michigan at the Akron Class will be at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, an awkward time for fans.
• Kent State will play St. Bonaventure at noon Tuesday, Dec. 3. It’s a “school day” game with students from local elementary and secondary schools invited. The men play at 7 that night against Detroit Mercy.
• The Flashes have two other home doubleheaders:
  • 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11, vs. Western Michigan. The men play Central Michigan at about 3:30 p.m.
  • About 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, vs. Toledo. The men’s game against Ohio starts at 1.
• Kent State’s two games at the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic start at 3 p.m. (noon Kent time). The Flashes play Georgia Southern on Thursday, Dec. 19, and Troy on Friday, Dec. 20.

Link to full KSU schedule.

Senior Ali Poole rehabbing an injured knee

Poole was injured in practice in August, shortly before the team’s exhibition game trip to Vancouver, Canada.

She has been in rehabilitation since. When I watched practice last week, she wore an impressively large knee brace. She did take part of a couple of non-contact drills, shot some free throws with the team and spent a lot of time shooting three-point shots with a team manager. (Her shooting looked pretty good.)

“We just continuing to see how she progresses,” Starkey said after practice. “She’s actually ahead of where I thought she’s be at this point. So I’m optimistic.

“We need her, We need her experience, and we need her leadership.”

Poole averaged 8.8 points a game last season, fourth best on the team. She started 19 of 33 games and averaged almost 28 minutes per game. Poole, Megan Carter and Sydney Brinlee are the seniors on the team.

It’s been a rough year for women in the Poole family. Her sister, Mikayla, plays basketball for Malone. Mikayla watched a couple of KSU games last season with a dislocated shoulder in a sling. The sisters’ mother, Jodie, watched her daughters play last season with her own foot in a cast after surgery. Jodie had been an assistant and junior varsity coach at Carrollton High School for many years.

A first-day passing drill with coach Starkey and freshman guard Clare Kelly. Next to Starkey is sophomore point guard Asiah Dingle.

“Every season, every team writes its own story,” coach Todd Starkey told his 14 players as they stood in a loose circle at center court in the M.A.C. Center at 9:45 a.m. Thursday.

Starkey has used the phrase before, but it seemed very apt on Thursday, his team’s first official day of practice.

He nodded toward Alexa Golden, the four-year starter who has moved into a graduate assistant role with the team.

“Last year Lex and Merissa (Barber-Smith, last season’s other senior) stood where you are,” Starkey went on. “It happens fast. A blink and it will be gone.

“Don’t squander it.”

And with that started the 2019-20 women’s basketball season, one that brings much promise. The Flashes return four starters and 83.4 percent of their scoring from a 20-13 season. They have three promising freshmen, two of whom could well be in the starting lineup their first game at Duquesne Nov. 5.

The goal, said senior Megan Carter, the team’s leading scorer last year, is simple.

“A MAC title,” she said after practice.

It’s certainly within the realm of possibility. The Flashes were fifth in the Mid-American Conference last season. Of the four teams ahead of them, only Ohio (27-8 last season) has more firepower returning. Central Michigan and Buffalo, last season’s divisional champions, had major graduation losses. Miami has its two best players back but graduated three other starters and lost its coach to Marquette.

Other teams, especially Northern Illinois and Ball State, looked to be improved. But Kent State is as good a bet as any for the top four spots, which earn a bye at the MAC Tournament.

But, as Starkey reminded his team Thursday, that’s almost six months away.

“It’s three-and-a-half weeks until our first game,” he said. “It will happen quickly — and we’re not ready. We need the practice.”

So the Flashes set to work. In the two hours, the team:

• Put up a lot of shots in fast-moving drills. Sometimes they’d hit five 3-point baskets in a row, then miss five 15 seconds later. But there is no doubt that this team has shooters, and they’ve been working on improving.
• Worked for a long time on “back screen defense” — a way to stop opposing teams from freeing a shooter by running her by another player. (It’s basic basketball, but I still understood only about 30 percent of what Starkey was saying.)
• Ran their half-court offense — not hugely different than what we saw last season — with a lot of different combinations of players.
• Introduced the basic 1-3-1 defense with variations — for example,  a post in the center, or a point guard in the center.
• Hit five of six free throws at the end of practice to avoid having to run sprints.

“We’re still very young,” Starkey said. (There are likely to be four sophomore and three freshmen among its top nine or 10 players.}

“So you saw a lot of teaching today,” he said. “There was a lot of talking and teaching and breaking down stuff. We’re going to need to be about that for the next two to three weeks.”

NCAA rules allowed the Flashes to practice four hours a week this summer — with more time before and during the team’s exhibition tour to Vancouver, Canada, in August. Starkey and his assistants emphasized individual work.

“Our assistant coaches did a phenomenal job of helping every player’s individual skill set,” he said. “But from a team defensive standpoint, we need time and reps.”

(For the record, the coach said almost exactly the same thing a year ago, and defense turned out to be the team’s strength.)

I’ve got a lot more from the practice, the Starkey interview and brief chats with four key players. I’ll be adding posts for the next few days.

But let’s give the last word on the first day to Starkey, who’s seen 21 seasons begin as a coach.

“It’s always new,” he said. “New practice gear, new shoes, and always a new level of excitement.”

This is Kent State’s new practice facility for basketball and volleyball. Located in the M.A.C. Center Annex, it opened last week. The teams will use it when the university needs the M.A.C.C. for other things, such as graduation or concerts. It also will give the teams more flexibility in setting practice times. (Photo from KSU Twitter feed.)

Kent Stater sports writer Ian Kreider did a major piece on the facility when it was under construction.

Here’s a video the team posted on Twitter Monday.

New practice facility feels 😁🏀 #GoFlashes ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/cppiIn3Qxc

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) September 9, 2019

The MAC released the women’s conference schedule today.

Kent State (11-7 in the MAC last season, 20-13 overall), have its top four scorers and 84% of their points back, along with three freshmen who were impressive in the team’s summer exhibition trip to British Columbia. 

Notes on the KSU league schedule (non-conference schedule was released weeks ago):

• The Flashes open conference play at Ball State on Saturday, Jan. 4.
  • The good: It’s always good to play early conference games away, when students haven’t returned to campus. It’s also nice to take longer trips before the semester starts so students don’t miss class.
  • The bad: Kent State played its worst MAC game of the season at Ball State when it made just 24% of its shots and lost to the 11th-place Cardinals 48-44. A strange but awful statistic: KSU hasn’t won at Ball State since 1997. Because Ball State is in the MAC’s Western Division, the Flashes only play there every few years, but still…
  • The opponent: Ball State (3-15 in the MAC last season and 8-23 overall) ought to be substantially improved. The Cardinals have their top four scorers back, plus a star freshman who was injured early last season. They have been one of the MAC’s better teams over the last decade. Last year’s team struggled in large part because its best two returning players graduated early and transferred to other Division I schools.
• The Flashes open at home the next Wednesday, Jan. 8, against Eastern Michigan
  • The good: Coach Todd Starkey has beaten EMU six straight times since he became head coach in 2016.
  • The bad: Eastern’s recruiting classes have been rated among the best in the MAC every year since Fred Castro became coach the same year as Starkey did. The Eagles have yet to have a winning season under Castro, but you fear that eventually they’ll put it together.
  • The opponent: Eastern finished ninth in the MAC last season at 6-12 and was 14-17 overall.
• MAC teams play every school in their division twice. They play all teams in the other division but only two of them twice. Kent plays Ball State (see above) away and in Kent. The Flashes play Toledo home and away. KSU had beaten Toledo three straight times in Toledo, where the Rockets generally dominate. Toledo is always in the MAC first division and likely will be again.
• Kent State plays its two single away games at Western Michigan and at Central Michigan. Both are about a four-and-a-half-hour bus rides. The Western game is the Saturday before classes start; the Flashes play Central on a February Wednesday. Central won the MAC last season but lost two all-conference players. WMU was 10th.
• Western Division teams that KSU plays only in Kent are Northern Illinois (10-8 and 19-13 overall last season) and Eastern Michigan (see above).
• The Flashes finish the season with five straight games against Eastern Division teams. Their last game is against Buffalo for the sixth season in a row, this year at Buffalo. The Bulls, second in the MAC last season, lost a lot to graduation but have a strong freshman class.

The MAC ranked eighth of 32 conferences last season. It will tough again. Central Michigan and Buffalo both made the NCAA tournament last season. On paper, no team except Ohio looks that good at this point.

Ohio, which went 27-5 last season (14-4 MAC) and just missed the NCAA tournament, has its best four starters back and figures to be the MAC favorite.

Both Buffalo (23-9, 12-6) and Central Michigan (25-4, 25-7) lost a lot to graduation, but I’m sure they’ll be good again. Both won their first game in the NCAA tournament last season.

Kent State (11-7, 20-13) and Toledo (11-7, 20-11) should be competitive with any of those schools.

Miami went 23-8 last season (13-5 MAC) and has its best two players (but no other starters) back and a new coach. Northern Illinois (10-8 MAC, 19-13) lost its top scorer but has its other starters back.

Ball State (3-15, 9-23) and Western Michigan (4-14, 10-20) get key players back from injury and could be substantially better.

Eastern Michigan (6-12, 14-17) still hasn’t proven it can win.

I’ll be surprised if Akron (7-11, 16-14) and Bowling Green (2-16, 9-21), both rebuilding with second-year coaches, make the top half of the league.

Full KSU non-conference and conference schedule

Last season’s final MAC standings