Kent Stater sports editor Gina Butkovich spent six weeks on this story as part of an independent study with me (wearing my hat as a part-time journalism teacher). Gina has covered Megan and the women’s’ basketball team for two years for the Stater. For this story, she interviewed Megan multiple times, along with her parents. She wrote the story as narrative, telling it as novelist would tell it — but with facts. (Photo by Jarett Theberge.)

Reprinted with permission from the Kent Stater

By GINA BUTKOVICH

Kent Stater sports editor

It had been three months since 14-year-old Megan Carter went up for a jump shot at AAU practice and landed awkwardly on her knee.

It had hurt every day since.

Now she was sitting with her dad in the doctor’s office, waiting for MRI results that would tell if her ACL was torn. Though her father and the doctor had told her how serious an ACL tear could be, she still thought she’d be fine. Maybe a few weeks of physical therapy. Maybe missing a game or two. It was a bummer but not the end of the world. 

Then the doctor turned to Megan.

“You’re going to need surgery,” he said. “And it will probably mean at least six months without basketball.”

Megan started to cry at “without basketball.” Six months was longer than she had gone without playing since her brother handed her a ball when she was 2. She didn’t know how she could stand that. 

The doctor offered her a tissue, and her dad put his hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s going to be OK,” he said gently.

Surgery 1: eighth grade

By the end of the month, Megan’s knee was fixed by a surgeon recommended by her doctor. 

At first, she went to therapy four or five times a week for an hour-and-a-half at a time. She got frustrated when she couldn’t immediately grasp how to do the heel raises and hamstring curls. Megan missed the court terribly. She isolated herself, not seeing friends or teammates. 

It got better after the first month. Her appointments were cut down to three times a week, and she started to get the hang of the exercises. The first time she went to an AAU game to watch her team, she had to step out of the gym for a while. She missed playing so much. But by the third game of her freshman year, she was back on the court.

But all season, something didn’t feel right. Megan tried to put it out of her mind and just enjoy the chance to play. 

Schools like Michigan and Michigan State had started to recruit her.

But then, in January, as she was driving to the middle of the lane during a high school game, Megan faked a step to the left, then drove to the right. Her newly healed knee buckled. 

She went in and out of the rest of the game and managed to limp to the final whistle. A week later, she was in Dr. Stephen Lemo’s office. He is the surgeon for most of Detroit’s professional athletes. He told them that the first surgery was the wrong surgery.  It was for people who just wanted mobility. Megan played basketball at full speed — always.

Surgery 2: Ninth grade

It would take a whole new surgery on the same knee to get back on the court.

She didn’t want to quit. But if basketball meant getting hurt over and over, she wondered if she had it in her to keep playing. 

“Whatever you want to do, I’m going to support you,” her dad told her over the kitchen table one afternoon. “But you’ve loved basketball so much your whole life.” 

In the end, Megan couldn’t imagine life without basketball. 

So it was back to rehab.

She could feel herself starting to get better, but she was still so worried that even walking up the stairs was scary. What if that caused another tear? 

Megan got back onto the court a month into her sophomore season. Even when she came back, she was afraid every move could lead to another injury. 

It wasn’t until her junior year that Megan felt healed. That season, she averaged more than 20 points a game. In January, she had back-to-back 34-point games.  

The Big Ten schools that had recruited her pulled back after her injury. But Mid American Conference schools, including Kent State, were still interested. For Megan, it didn’t matter. She just wanted to play basketball. 

Committing to Kent State

In September 2014, Megan visited Kent State for her first official college visit. Two weeks later, called Kent State from her living room and committed. Her dad walked into the house a minute after she hung up, and they celebrated together. The team wanted her before she was injured, while she was injured and after she was recovered. 

Two hours after she graduated from high school, Megan climbed into the car with her parents and headed to Kent. The next day she would start workouts.

When the fall semester started, Megan moved to Fletcher Hall. She lived next to teammate Savannah Neace, and they were in each other’s room all the time. Practice was going well and Megan had high hopes for the season. 

Megan played 11 minutes in her first college game. The second game, she played 22 minutes and had nine points. She looked poised to be the primary backup to sophomore point guard Naddiyah Cross. 

Then at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne on Nov. 19, Megan went up for a layup.

Before she even hit the ground, Megan could tell something was wrong. She landed and started crying and screaming, “No, no, no.” She lay on the court for minutes. Coaches and trainers looked at her knee and tried to calm her down, but it didn’t do much good. This time it was her other knee.

She sat behind the team bench with her leg propped up for the rest of the game. On the the three-and-a-half-hour bus ride home, Megan sat by herself and cried. Her dad kept trying to call, but she let it go to voicemail. 

An hour into the trip, she picked up the phone. Megan kept crying but listened as her dad talked. 

“It’s going to be OK,” he said. “Life goes on, with or without basketball. You’re going to be OK.”

She went to a doctor in Kent the next day. She was sure it was her ACL. He scheduled an MRI to be sure. Megan’s diagnosis was right.

Surgeries 3 and 4: KSU freshman year

Her parents were with her when she went under anesthesia on Dec. 11. Watching them drive home a few days later, she felt her heart break. Having family around her made everything a little bit better.

Megan was on crutches for four weeks, and as soon as she was off them, she went back for shoulder surgery to fix a nagging injury. For the next month, only half her body — her left leg and right arm — were working.

Every day that spring, she went through two hours of rehab. Her shoulder exercises went a lot easier than her knee, but rehabbing two injuries at once was still tougher than she had anticipated. She often just felt numb and went through the motions of school work.

In the spring, the effort of keeping up with her rehab, classes and watching as her team play without her got to be too much. In February, she told team trainer Emily Moran that she was about to break down. 

Moran talked to the head coach Danny O’Banion.

“Go home for the weekend,” O’Banion said. “You’re not playing. You won’t miss anything.” 

Being home with family, even just for a few days, felt like pressing a reset button. Though at times, she still felt like she was going through the motions of life, she started to feel more positive about returning to basketball. She tried to take charge of her recovery.

Kent State went 6-23 that season, and in early March, it was announced that O’Banion would not have her contract renewed. 

Over the next few weeks, head coach prospects were brought to the team for interviews. The team — and Megan —  liked Todd Starkey, an assistant coach at Indiana, the best. 

After he was officially hired, Starkey met individually with everyone. 

Because of her injury, Starkey hadn’t seen much film of Megan. Instead, Starkey asked her to tell him about her role on the team. 

By summer, Megan was eager to prove she was as good as she told him. She started non-contact drills during practice and workouts. 

Back on the court for a new coach

In November, she came off the bench as Kent State won Starkey’s first game. She played 10 minutes, scored six points, — and felt as proud as she had ever been of herself.

By the end of the season, she was playing more minutes than starting point guard Cross. She played a key role as the Flashes, picked last in a preseason poll, won its first outright MAC East title since 2003. 

On a cold night in March, Megan climbed up a ladder at the end of their last home game and cut down a piece of the net. Megan felt like she was on top of the world. But in the back of her mind, she worried about school. 

Megan had come into college as a pre-med student and was starting to hate it. She played hard to win a MAC East title. But she struggled to get out of bed and go to classes. Often times, she would only attend class on exam days. 

It wasn’t a surprise to her when at the end of the year, she got a call from Kerrie Hunter’s office, the academic adviser for the team. Megan’s spring grades made her academically ineligible to play in the fall. 

Starkey told her she would get a chance to fix her academics. But if Megan slipped up again, she would be done playing at Kent State. 

A semester without basketball

Megan started meeting with Starkey and Hunter almost every day. She switched her major to public health and liked it. Megan practiced with the team but when they played she watched them play from the stands or, when they traveled, from her apartment couch.

On Jan. 3, 2018, she played her first game. Though the team lost 81-79 to Northern Illinois, Megan played 29 minutes and scored 17 points. 

The next game, she scored 15 points. The game after that she didn’t score at all. All season, Megan lacked consistency. She tried to remember the advice of Lacey Miller, a senior leader on the team.

“You’re better than what you’ve been displaying,” Miller had texted on the team bus one time. “I know you can do more. You’ve got it. Just do it.” 

Finding confidence

Megan tried to remember other people believe in her too. She worked on focus and consistency through the offseason, and the next year she led the team in scoring and made the MAC all-conference third team.

The team had its first 20-win season in eight years and beat Green Bay in the first round of the WNIT for the team’s first postseason win in 23 years.

As she plays the first home game of her last season against Ohio State tonight, she remembers the highs and lows. She remembers the friends she has made, the travel she loved — Florida in 2017, New York last year, Canada last summer, Las Vegas next month. She and her teammates are determined to challenge for a MAC championship this season.

All the injuries, all the rehab, all the struggles had been worth it. 

 And basketball would always be a part of her life. 

What they said about Megan and the story

Really proud of this one right here! @MLC_31 Thanks for writing this story @gigibutko 👏👏👏 https://t.co/ahzvb4URPe

— Todd Starkey (@ToddStarkey33) November 21, 2019

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😭😭😭😭😭

— Megan Carter (@MLC_31) November 22, 2019

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Great story about persistence!! Way to go @MLC_31 !!! https://t.co/V7wyvM1f4y

— NF Girls BB (@NFGirlsBB) November 22, 2019

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Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story. It was a pleasure speaking with you! https://t.co/ERIdLkC2pz

— Megan Carter (@MLC_31) November 21, 2019

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I keep thinking about the defensive play that coach Todd Starkey called to win Sunday’s game.

The Flashes sent two long-armed players to guard an inbound pass in the corner with seven seconds to go. Freshman guard Katie Shumate tipped the ball, senior Megan Carter grabbed it out of the air and sank the winning layup.

If you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen the play, here it is again. (I saw one retweet Monday with more than 24,000 views.

Start with the double-team in the upper left.

Megan Carter is always a good option with the game on the line. #Unleash | #GoFlashes ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/PUfeY7VYcW

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

Special circumstances made the play work.

1. Shumate had tipped a previous pass out of bounds. The referees spent a long time at the scorer’s table making sure Robert Morris was indeed supposed to get the basketball.

2. That gave Starkey time to devise and set up the defense. The Flashes otherwise were out of timeouts.

3. Robert Morris also was out of timeouts. So when 5-8 guard Isabella Posset looked at the two-person wall of Shumate and Lindsey Thall, she saw a defense she almost certainly had never seen before. All she could do was to try to do the best she could.

4.  One way the beat the defense would be for a RMU player to break down the court and for Posset to throw the ball high in the air to her. Even if KSU were to come up with the ball, the clock would be ticking with seconds to play and no timeouts.

5. But Kent State had just cut the Colonials’ lead to one point in a furious comeback. Adrenaline was running high. And the RMU guard had five seconds to figure out what to do.

The play got a lot of national attention. Here’s a tweet from ESPN’s Debbie Antonelli, one of the top broadcast analysts of women’s basketball.

Double teaming the inbounder! Big coaching move @ToddStarkey33
Congrats on the WIN! https://t.co/xHsr8mS2he

— Debbie Antonelli (@debbieantonelli) November 25, 2019

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Here’s full story on KSU’s 82-81 victory

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Notes

Kent State redshirt senior guard Megan Carter is seven points away from becoming the Flashes’ 22nd 1,000-point scorer. She’ll get her chance when KSU plays  St. Bonaventure at the M.A.C. Center at noon on Tuesday, Dec. 3.

Kent State had won two games at Robert Morris in the last two years. The Colonials had scored a total of 77 points. They scored 81 in Kent Saturday.

Robert Morris is known as defensive team — so much so that coach Charlie Buscaglia had gone 21-0 when his team scored at least 70 points. It’s now 21-1.

Starkey on Robert Morris: “That’s a really good basketball team that we just found a way to beat. They’re very well coached and they played very hard. There’s a reason why they’re the consensus picks a win the lead their league.

Buscaglia, who has a 71-33 record and three conference championship in three-plus season,  got a three-year contract extension last week. He had become in 2016 head coach when his father, Sal, retired in 2016 after 13 years in charge.

Robert Morris senior center Nneka Ezeigbo scored her 1,000th point against KSU in the first quarter. She now has 1,015.

 

Freshman Nila Blackford had her best game, and it was quite a game — 31 points on 11 baskets and nine free throws. She had nine rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocked shots. (Photo from KSU website.)

Kent State had never practiced the defense that won its game against Robert Morris Sunday.

It came after a three-point basket by Lindsey Thall with seven seconds to play had made the score 81-80 RMU.

Katie Shumate tipped the Colonials’ inbound pass back out of bounds, and the referees took several minutes to make sure that was the right call. That gave Kent State a time to set up a defense that was quite different.

When the teams came back out, Kent State put two players with long arms — 5-11 Shumate and 6-2 Thall — guarding the RMU player trying to pass the ball inbounds, 5-8 guard Isabella Possett.

You could tell Possett was in trouble as soon as she tried to look around Shumate and Thall.

Shumate tipped the pass, it popped into the air, and KSU senior Megan Carter grabbed it about six feet from the basket. She took one dribble toward the basket and cleanly made a layup.

Here’s video of the game winner. Watch the double-team in the upper-left, then Carter’s winning basket.

Megan Carter is always a good option with the game on the line. #Unleash | #GoFlashes ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/PUfeY7VYcW

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

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Carter’s basket gave Kent State its only lead of the game and an 82-81 victory over the Colonials, unanimous preseason favorites to win the Northeastern Conference.

The Flashes are now 4-2 on the season. Robert Morris is 2-3.

“It was something I saw from Penn State when I coached at Indiana,” coach Todd Starkey after the game. “They used to put three on the ball, and they’d create a wall.

He said he knew the Flashes had to deflect the inbound pass. If Robert Morris were able to pass the ball successfully, KSU would have to foul, RMU would get two shots, and KSU probably wouldn’t have the time to get the back down the court for a shot of final shots of its own.

“We put Katie, who’s bouncy, and Lindsay, who’s long, on it,” the arch said. “I said, ‘You’ve got four hands in there. Get one on the ball.'”

The other Kent State players “were just playing safety, like in football,” Starkey said. “I said, ‘Shoot the gap, find a way to get a steal.’

Then it was up to Carter.

“I just scooped it up,” she said. “I looked up,  I saw the basket, and I didn’t see anybody in front of me.”

Was the play something the team had worked on?

“No, no,” Starkey said. “You can’t practice for every situation, especially with a young team. Their heads would just be swimming.”

Kent State trailed by as many as 18 points in the second quarter and 13 points with 4:54 to go.

In those last five minutes, the Flashes outscored Robert Morris 23-8. They made seven of 10 baskets, including three of three in the last 33 seconds. They scored on four fast breaks, two of them three-point plays and one a three-point basket. They made four-of-five free throws.

“Wwe just kept telling them: ‘We haven’t done a whole lot right. Just hang around, hang around, hang around. Give us an opportunity at the end. We did and we took advantage of it. We just kept coming back. They just kept fighting, kept chipping away.”

I mentioned freshman forward Nila Blackford’s numbers in the caption on her photo above. But they’re worth repeating:

• 31 points on 11-of -16 field goal attempts. It was the most posts for a KSU freshman since Ellie Shields scored 31 vs. Toledo in 2008.
• Nine-of 11-free throws.
• Nine rebounds, four of them offensive.
• Two assists, two steals and two blocked shots.

Blackford also drew eight fouls, playing primarily against Nneka Ezeigbo, last year’s defensive player of the year in the Northeastern Conference, and Ezeigbo’s 6-3 backup. Ezeigbo fouled out with 2:29 to play. She had 18 points and nine rebounds.

“We really wanted to get the ball to Nila a lot in the second half,” Starkey said. “They were helping so heavy on Lindsey because she’s such a great 3-point shooter. So we used her as a decoy and used a lot of plays to get Nila open on the inside. And then Nila did a great job of finishing down the stretch.”

Blackford had struggled with making shots at the rim early in the season and was hitting  just 35% of her shots going into the game.

What’s the art of finishing?

“Focus,” Blackford said. “Focus. Keeping my eyes on the basket and finishing through contact.”

Box score

Notes

• Carter had 16 points, Shumate 13, Thall 11 and Asiah Dingle nine.
• Kent State did its best shooting of the season, even after making just 23.1% (three of 13) in the first quarter. The Flashes finished at 50.9%, including 11 of 16 or 668.8% in the fourth quarter.
• Robert Morris made 28 of its 56 shots for 50%. It was the fifth time in six games an opponent has shot 45% or better against the Flashes.
• Carter’s game winner was her second of the season. Her shot with 0.4 seconds to go beat Duquesne 77-75 in KSU’s opener.
• For the third time this season, KSU’s points off turnovers gave them far more than the winning margin. The Flashes forced 17 turnovers and scored 24 points from them. Robert Morris scored 11 points off of 15 Kent turnovers. Shumate produced four of those turnovers with steals.
• The Flashes had 18 assists on 28 baskets, highest of the season in total assists and percentage of baskets assisted. Asiah Dingle had six assists (but seven turnovers).
• KSU’s bench scored just two points, a basket by junior Monique Smith. Robert Morris reserves scored 23.
• Robert Morris made 3-point shots at the buzzer of the first and third quarter and two more 3-pointers as the shot clock expired.
• Blackford’s 31 points was the second time in two games a KSU player had scored more than 30. Thall had 32 against Ohio State Thursday. The last time that happened was in February 1991. In subsequent games, Tracy Lynn scores 38 agains tWestern Michigan, Ann Forbes scored 32 against Ohio and Lynn scored 32 against Central Michigan. KSU averages 91.3 points in those three games.

Kent State is now off for Thanksgiving and plays next at noon Tuesday, Dec. 3 against St. Bonaventure, which is 1-5 this season. The noon start is for an education day in which local elementary, middle school and high school students are bused to campus for tours.

Video highlights, including Thall and Carter baskets at end with radio announcer Dan Griffin making the call of the winning basket.

From KSU Twitter, more video.

Thall’s 3-pointer to make the game 81-80.

0:06 4Q | Robert Morris 81, Kent State 80

A three from Lindsey Thall, brings the Flashes within 1 point! #GoFlashes pic.twitter.com/pBgm405EK6

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

Carter 3-pointer with 24 seconds to go.

0:24 4Q | Robert Morris 78, Kent State 75

Megan Carter drills a three and cuts Robert Morris’ lead down to three. #GoFlashes pic.twitter.com/xFuf1GB5rk

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

 

Asiah Dingle with a driving basket.

0:24 4Q | Robert Morris 78, Kent State 75

Megan Carter drills a three and cuts Robert Morris’ lead down to three. #GoFlashes pic.twitter.com/xFuf1GB5rk

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

Another 3-pointer by Carter

3:04 4Q | Robert Morris 72, Kent State 67

Megan Carter gets the Flashes within 5 again! #GoFlashes pic.twitter.com/XMCvxIN10w

— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 24, 2019

 

Senior Megan Carter in action against Ohio State. She had three 3-point baskets and 13 points against the Buckeyes. (Photo by David Dermer.)

Kent State’s Sunday game against Robert Morris isn’t nearly as glamorous as its meeting with Ohio State Thursday, but it could tell us more about the team.

The Flashes are 3-2 after their 75-65 loss to OSU before 4,272 fans, probably the largest crowd ever to see a women’s game at the M.A.C. Center. (Records before 2000 are spotty.)

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ALL ABOUT THE KENT STATE OHIO STATE GAME

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Robert Morris is 2-2 and the unanimous favorite to win the Northeastern Conference, a league it has dominated for the 10 years.

The Colonials and Kent State have played tough games with each other over the last three years. RMU beat the Flashes 68-65 in overtime in Kent three years ago. KSU has won defensive battles at Robert Morris the last two years, 54-46 last season and 46-31 two years ago.

The Colonials would be competitive in the Mid-American Conference, though probably not at the top of the league.

So far this season they have lost to TCU (now 4-0) and beaten LaSalle (4-1) in overtime on the road, then beaten Youngstown State (2-3) and lost to Columbia (2-3) at home. Robert Morris has led in the second half of every game, and all except YSU has been decided by five points or fewer.

Kent State beat Youngstown State by nine in overtime at YSU. Robert Morris beat the Penguins by 58-43 in Pittsburgh.

Robert Morris returns four starters and 85% of its scoring from a team that went 22-11 last season and made the WNIT. 6-foot-2 senior center Nneka Ezeigbo (15.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game so far this season) was all-conference last season and league defensive player of the year.

Guard Nina Augustin (10 points, 5.8 assists per game) made the all-NEC tournament team and guard Isabel Possett made the league’s all–freshman team. The Colonials have added junior college all-American Holly Forbes (9.3 ppg).

Robert Morris ranked 12th in the country in scoring defense last season, allowing 55 points per game.

Kent State, which ranked third in the MAC in points allowed last year, has yet to find its defense this season despite returning three starters (a fourth has been injured). The Flashes are giving up 75 points a game, 13 more than last season. Four of their five opponents have shot better than 45%, though two were the Big Ten’s Michigan and Ohio State.

Those were the teams that beat KSU. The Flashes have beaten mid-majors YSU (2-3) and Duquesne (3-2) on the road and Purdue Fort Wayne (2-4) at the Akron Classic.

Sophomore forward Lindsey Thall’s 32 points against Ohio State, powered largely by a school-record eight three-pointers, pushed her scoring average to 16.2 per game. The four other KSU starters also average in double figures: freshman guard Katie Shumate (12.8), sophomore guard Asiah Dingle (12.6), freshman forward Nila Blackford (11.6) and senior guard Megan Carter (10.6).

Blackford (8 rebounds a game), Shumate (5.2) and Thall (4.4) lead in rebounding. 

Kent State season statistics

Mid-American Conference standings (just non-league games so far).

The view from Ohio State

Ohio State coach Kevin McDuff, as quote in the Columbus Dispatch’s BuckeyeExtra

“I thought we played well for three quarters, and then in the fourth quarter we played really bad. I think that’s just a sign of an immature team; we got out of our process and system and they made us pay for it.”

On the team having nine players with more than 17 minutes:

“One of the luxuries of this team is that we have some depth and can play a lot of people. It was a really good performance.”

On the team’s 22 assists, a season high, on 32 baskets:

“I really liked the way we moved the ball. (That’s when) we’re at our best.:

To follow the Robert Morris game

Tipoff is at 1 p.m. at the M.A.C. Center. General admission tickets are $5. Students get in free with their ID.

Video will be streamed on ESPN3, which is free if you subscribe to ESPN by cable, satellite or app.

Pregame audio begins at about 12:45 p.m. on Golden Flash iHeart Radio. 

Live statistics are available during the game on the Kent State website.

KSU team website, with links to roster, schedule, statistics and more.

Robert Morris website, with links.

 

 

Kent State’s starting five (from left): Nila Blackford, Asian Dingle (3), Lindsey Thall, Megan Carter (31), Katie Shumate (right). (Photo from team website.)

When Kent State played Michigan four days ago, the Wolverines took charge of the game in the second quarter and did just about everything they wanted to on the way to a 88-53 victory.

When the Flashes played at North Carolina in their opener a year ago, they led the Tar Heels by two points with five minutes to go before losing 73-60.

Is either a pattern for Kent State’s home game against Ohio State on Thursday?

“Is Ohio State good enough to blow us out?” coach Todd Starkey said in an interview Tuesday. “Absolutely. ”

“If we play really well and shoot the ball really well, can we make it interesting and potentially win? I think so as well.”

Ohio State is coming off a 74-68 loss to MAC favorite Ohio University on Sunday. “I suspect they’re pretty mad,” Starkey said. “That doesn’t help our cause a whole lot.”

The Buckeyes are 2-1, beating Valparaiso 89-38 and winning at Cincinnati 78-73 in overtime.

Kent State is 3-1, with road wins over Duquesne 77-75 and Youngstown State 82-71 and a win over Purdue Fort Wayne 75-67 Sunday in the Akron Classic. The Flashes’ loss to Michigan also was in Akron.

Both teams are young and still learning to play as a unit.

Kent State’s second-leading scorer and top two rebounders are both freshman. Two other starters are sophomores.

Ohio State starts a junior transfer, three sophomores and a freshman. The five other players who got into the Oho game were all freshmen. That group’s recruiting class was rated fourth in the country this year.

“They’ve got former Ms. Basketballs and all-state players and all-Americans and all that type of things,” Starkey said. “They’re very talented at every position and have depth at every position. But they’re young and trying to find their way, just like we are.

“They’re playing players together than have not played major minutes together. Even Braxton Miller, who’s a junior transfer from Oklahoma with a lot of experience, hasn’t played with this group before. You’ve got all those freshmen and a group of sophomores who played some last year. But they didn’t play with these players.”

Kent State has enough talent that its starting five all average at least 12 points a game. But Starkey has said after every game that the team wasn’t connected enough.

On offense, that has meant the players have been scoring without a lot of help from their teammates. KSU averages just nine assists a game, which 310th of 350 Division I teams ranked by herhoopstats, an analytics service.

“We have to be more willing passers,” Starkey said. “We have to make the extra pass — pass up average shots for good shots, good shorts for great shots. That comes from experience and time playing with each other, but also from people being conscious of it.”

Still KSU is averaging 71.8 points, highest in Starkey’s four years here.

On defense,  a similar lack of “connectiveness” (Starkey’s word) has created problems.

“Everybody is kind of focused on what their individual responsibility is right,” the coach said. “When you’ve got five players kind of on a defensive Island, they may be able to do their specific job. But if they don’t know what the other person’s job is and they don’t know what to do when that person doesn’t do their job, it throws everybody off a little.

“We’ve been very reactionary defensively. You want to be a team that anticipates defensively. Regardless of the talent that you have, if you’re always reacting on the court, it slows down your talent.”

Something has to get better on defense. The Flashes are allowing almost 17 points a game more than they did last season. Some of that 78.9 average is distorted by Michigan’s 88 points. Some is distorted by the extra scoring of their overtime win at Youngstown State. But take those away and and they’re still allowing 68.7 points a game — six more than last season.

Opponents’ are making 46.8% of their shots, a figure that would have been last in the MAC by 3 percentage points last season. Michigan made 54.7% of its shots. Duquesne and Youngstown State each shot above 45%.

Ohio State is perhaps the most intriguing matchup in Kent in school history. But people need to remember it’s still just a game in November, Starkey said.

“My biggest focus is help this team grow on the timeline that they need so they can be playing their best basketball in February and March. We can’t just try to win a single game against Ohio State. We’ve got to figure out how to get better.”

All about the game

It will start about 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the M.A.C. Center. It’s the second game of a doubleheader with the Kent State men, who play Division II Concord (2-2) at 5 p.m. The women’s game will start a half hour after the men’s game ends.

One ticket gets you in both games. Men’s reserved seats are $20, general admission $15. You may have to switch seats between games. Students get in free with their ID. Men’s and women’s season tickets will be honored. Kent State is hoping for a record crowd for a women’s game, which would be more than 4,000 in the 6,000-seat M.A.C.C.

The game is on ESPN+, which costs $4.99 a month. This link will take you to the ESPN page, which will guide you through paying. Other home and away men’s and women’s basketball games are also on ESPN+, along with those of other MAC teams and other mid-majors and events in other sports like wrestling and gymnastics. Dave Wilson and Tanner Castora are the announcers.

On radio, the game is on WHLO 640 AM and on Golden Flash iHeart Radio. Ty Linder is the announcer.

During the game, you can get live statistics through the KSU website.

All about the Buckeyes

• Starting forward Dorka Juhasz is 6-foot-4 and a preseason all-Big Ten selection. She was second all-Big Ten as a freshman. She led the team in scoring (11.7 points per game) and rebounding (9.0) last season and has 13 career double-doubles, including 16 points and 12 rebounds against Ohio.
• Junior guard Braxtin Miller is a 5-10 Dayton native who transferred back to Ohio from Oklahoma. She got an NCAA waiver to be eligible this year just before the season started. At Oklahoma she averaged 13 points a game and was twice honorable mention All-Big 12.
• Kierstan Bell, a 6-1 guard, played for Canton McKinley High School and was Miss Basketball in Ohio the last three years, The only other person to win three years in a row is LeBron James. She had five steals, 12 points and six rebounds against Ohio, but she also had three turnovers and missed all seven of her 3-point shots.
• Aaliyah Patty is a 6-3 sophomore forward who has averaged nine points and six rebounds in OSU’s three games. Last season she played in all 29 games, made five starts as a freshman and scored 20 points in a win at Minnesota.
• Sophomore Janal Crooms is a 5-10 guard who had 12 assists and 10 points against Cincinnati. She was third on the team in scoring last season and had 27 points of 12-of-15 shooting in Ohio State’s overtime win at Penn State.

Against Ohio, the five people off the bench were all freshmen

• Aixa Wone Aranaz, a 6-3 forward rated 15th best international recruit in her class
• Kaeluynn Satterfield, a 6-foot guard rated a five-start recruit and No. 32 in her class.
• Jay Sheldon, a 5-10 five-star guard from Dublin, Ohio, rated No. 41 in her class.
• Madison Green, a 5-8 guard from Pickerington rated 61st best recruit last season.
• Rebeka Mikuklasikova, a 6-4 forward from Slovakia who has played for at least five international teams.

Game preview from Ohio State team website, which has links to statistics, roster, schedule and more.

All about the Flashes

• Starting guard Megan Carter, a 5-6 redshirt senior from Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit. She was a preseason all-MAC East selection and made the all-MAC third team last season. She was the team’s leading scorer last year at 15.5 points per game.  Her strongest weapon is a pull-up jump shot.
• Point guard Asiah Dingle, a 5-4 sophomore from Stoughton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Dingle is KSU’s leading scorer so far this season at 15 points per game. She made the MAC’s all-freshman team last season and was runner-up for freshman of the year. She has a wicked drive to the basket.
• Forward Lindsey Thall, a 6-2 sophomore from Strongsville, Ohio. Thall led the MAC in blocked shots last season and made 45.8% of her 3-point shots in league play and 40% all season. She’s making 42.9 of her 3s this season and averaged 12.3 points per game. She also made the league’s all-freshman team last season.
• Guard Katie Shumate, a 5-11 freshman from Newark, Ohio. She leads the team in minutes played, is second in the team in scoring (14.8 points per game) and in rebounding (5.5). She has made 50% of her field goals and 58.3 percent of her 3-pointers.
• Forward Nila Blackford, a 6-2 freshman from Louisville, Kentucky. She leads Kent State in rebounding at 8.8 per game and averages 12.3 points. She was her region’s player of the year in Kentucky last season, which made her a finalist for Kentucky Miss Basketball.

Top reserves are:

• Sophomore guard Hannah Young, who has made all six shots she’s taken this season. She scored 1,998 points in at Brookville High School in Virginia.
• Senior forward Ali Poole, who has been sidelined with a knee injury. She may play Thursday. She has started 48 games in her career.
• Senior forward Sydney Brinlee, a junior college transfer who has become the team’s top reserve forward.
• Freshman guard Clare Kelly, who has been first player off the bench. She was one of Ohio’s best 3-point shooters in high school but hasn’t found the range yet in college.
• Sophomore guard Mariah Modkins, the shortest player on the team at 5-1 but very quick on defense. She backs up Dingle at point guard.

Preview from KSU team webpage, with links to roster, statistics, schedule and more.

Notes

• The last and only time an Ohio State basketball team played in the M.A.C. Center was 38 years ago, when the Mid-American Conference and Big Ten weren’t even playing women’s basketball. OSU beat Kent State 67-62 in the championship game of the Ohio Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women.
• Kent State will play a return game at Ohio State next season.
• The Flashes have lost all six games they’ve played against OSU. All were between 1978 and 1981.
• The game is the first of three straight at home for Kent State. The Flashes play Robert Morris, the preseason favorite in the Northeastern Conference, at 1 p.m. Sunday. They play St. Bonaventure at noon on Tuesday, Dec. 3. (It’s Education Day for local elementary, middle school and high school students.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAC favorite Ohio University beat Ohio State 74-68 in Columbus Sunday.

What can Kent State, which plays Ohio State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the M.A.C. Center, learn from that game?

The two biggest lessons are, perhaps:

1. A MAC team can indeed beat the Buckeyes.
2. Ohio State will come to Kent determined to make sure it doesn’t happen twice in a row.

I watched the game on television Sunday. Here are some thoughts about how Ohio won and how that might relate to Kent State.

• Ohio is almost certainly a better team than Kent State is. The Bobcats won 30 games last season and have almost all of their key players back. Kent State won 20, has a lot of players back but starts two freshmen. Ohio State won 15 last season and is a very different team with one of the best freshman classes in the country.
• The Flashes did play Ohio almost evenly last year, losing both games by two points (though KSU scored at the buzzer at one game to make it look a little closer than it was).
• Much like Kent State, Ohio State isn’t a mature team yet. The Buckeyes have even more new players than KSU, and they didn’t look smooth and consistent on offense and defense. Kent State coach Todd Starkey has said the same thing about his team all season.
• The Ohio-OSU game had 46 fouls and 34 turnovers. That worked to Ohio’s advantage, I think, as Ohio State didn’t get into much of an offensive flow. It reminded me a little of Kent State’s first quarter against Michigan Friday, when the Flashes took at 16-12 lead. Michigan did its thing for the rest of the game and blew out the Flashes 88-53.
• Ohio forced 20 turnovers and outscored the Buckeyes by three points off of turnovers. Until Saturday, Kent State had been doing very well in the turnover department. But against Purdue Fort Wayne, perhaps the weakest of the four  teams KSU has played, the Flashes made 22.
• A number of those turnovers came against a Fort Wayne press, the first time KSU had seen a full-court defense this season. I’m sure Ohio State saw the film. The Buckeyes successfully pressed Ohio late in the fourth quarter. KSU is going to have to prove it can beat it.
• Ohio took control of the game when it made six-of-seven 3-point shots in the third quarter. Kent State hasn’t had a good 3-point game since its opener at Duquesne, Since then the Flashes are 14 of 56. They were one of 11 in the first half against Michigan. Akron’s 3-points shooting against Michigan was much better and the game much closer — 80-71 Michigan.
• So the Flashes are going to need to shoot better behind the arc. Ohio shot 33% for the game against Ohio State, and in Ohio State’s first two wins, the Buckeyes held Valparaiso and Cincinnati to four of 42 three-pointers.
• Ohio State made just four of 21 three-point shots against the Bobcats and are shooting about 31% for the season. Another reason Akron played so much closer to Michigan was that the Wolverines made far fewer 3-pointers themselves. Kent State’s 3-point defense has been average this season.
• Ohio played good defense for most of the game, holding Ohio State to 36.2%. Kent State hasn’t played good defense for more than two quarters in any game, and KSU opponents are making 46.7% of their shots. If Ohio State does that, KSU won’t have much of a chance.
• Ohio State has a lot of talent, but it was inconsistent. Star recruit Kierstan Bell of Canton McKinley looked terrific in spots and disappeared in others. A bigger worry is 6-4 forward Dorka Juhasz, a preseason all-Big Ten selection. She had 16 rebounds but was four-of-13 shooting.
• Ohio has about the same size as Kent State and was outrebounded by Ohio State 50-41. Michigan is bigger than Ohio State and outrebounded the Flashes 45-28.

I have no huge conclusions other than Thursday’s game at the M.A.C.C. — one of the most intriguing matchups in the 30 years I’ve followed KSU women’s basketball — just got even a little more interesting.

Here’s story on Ohio-OSU game from Columbus Dispatch. Author is Henry Palattella, last year’s sports editor of the Kent Stater, who is now working for the Dispatch. Somehow Ohio State player’s name got dropped toward the end of the story. I’m pretty sure it was Dorka Juhasz, the Buckeyes’ 6-4 forward.

Here’s story from Ohio team website, link to Ohio student newspaper column on the game and game box score.

Link to Kent State website with links to roster, statistics and more. Thursday game is doubleheader with the men, who play Division II Concord at 4:30. One ticket gets you in both games.

 

KSU freshman Katie Shumate scored 10 points, her third straight game in double figures. (Photo from team Twitter feed.)

Coach Todd Starkey said it wasn’t going to be a long postgame press conference.

The reason for Kent State’s 88-53 loss to Michigan Friday was pretty self evident.

“We just got beat by a bigger and more athletic team that’s better than we are,” he said.

The Wolverines are ranked 24th in the country and picked to finish second in the Big Ten. They start five players 6 foot or taller, including one of the best players in the Big Ten, 6-2 sophomore forward Naz Hillmon. (Kent has that tall on its whole roster),

The game started nicely for Kent State fans. With neither team shooting or handling the ball well, the Flashes fought to a 16-12 lead after the first quarter, scoring six points off of six Michigan turnovers.

But after that, Michigan just played better and better. The Wolverines made 42% of their shots in the second quarter, 68% in the third and 75% in the fourth. They made 53% of their 3-point shots.

KSU didn’t shoot better than 37% in any quarter and made just five of 27 three-pointers (18.5%).

Michigan is now 3-0 on the season. Kent State is 2-1.

“When you play against teams that are that good and that big, your mistakes are magnified,” Starkey said. “And so our quick shots, careless turnovers and our lack of communication and transition defense was exposed in a big way in the second half.”

Starkey has talked about a lack of “consecutiveness” on the team all season. It was evident Friday, he said.

“We’ve got talented players that can make individual plays, but we’re not playing connected,” Starkey said. “Defensively we’re off. You saw some evidence of this in our first two games, but Michigan took advantage of that. They had two games to scout and see our holes. And they exposed them.”

Slowed by Michigan’s length and talent, the Flashes struggled to run any kind of offense. KSU had one assist on 11 first-half baskets and seven on 18 for the game.

On defense, the Flashes watched Michigan score inside, on 3-point shots and on fast breaks. 

“In the second half, they decided they were just going to throw it inside and see if we can stop them,” Starkey said. “We had trouble with that. Then they did a good job playing inside-out, they knocked down 3s, and the third quarter got away from us.”

Sophomore point guard Asiah Dingle led KSU with 12 points. Freshman guard Katie Shumate had 10, and sophomore forward Lindsey Thall, freshman forward Nila Blackford and sophomore reserve guard Hannah Young had eight each.

After the game, the team filed back into the James A. Rhodes Arena to watch Akron play Purdue Fort Wayne, Kent’s opponent on Saturday.

“We have to have a short-term memory and put it behind us,” Starkey said.

Said Blackford, “This is not a game that defines us. We learn from it and get better.”

Lots of playing time

Kent State’s starters all had averaged more than 35 minutes in the Flashes’ first two games, and Starkey had said he wanted to use his bench more. He did, but not completely for the reasons he planned.

Thall, Blackford and Dingle all picked up two fouls in the first half. Senior Megan Carter had three. As Michigan ran up the score, the coach cleared the bench. So everybody on the roster played except senior Ali Poole, who has been recovering from a knee injury. She was in uniform but on the bench wearing a very large knee brace.

All of these people played more minutes than in the first two games combined:

• Freshman guard Clare Kelly:  (one 3-pointer, an assist and a steal in 21 minutes),.
• Senior forward Sydney Brinlee (two rebounds in 17 minutes).
• Sophomore guard Hannah Young (two-for-two shooting with a 3-pointers and three-for-three shooting in eight minutes).
• Sophomore forward Annie Pavlansky (eight minutes).
• Junior forward Monique Smith (two points in seven minutes) all played more than they did in the first two games combined.

Sophomore guard Mariah Modkins, who played a total of 10 minutes in the first two games, had two assists in eight minutes. Junior guard Margaux Eibel played her first two minutes of the season.

Notes

• The two statistics that Kent State won were steals (8-5 KSU) and points off of turnovers, where the Flashes scored 15 to Michigan’s nine. KSU has led in that category all three games. In the game, Kent had 14 turnovers, Michigan 13.
• Otherwise, it was all Michigan: 45-28 rebounding, 48-30 in the paint, 19-7 in assists, 31-13 in bench scoring.
• Attendance was listed at 213,. I’d estimate Kent had 100 or so supporters there.
• It was Michigan’s biggest margin of the year against the three mid-majors it has played. The Wolverines beat Western Michigan 76-55 and Bradley by 77-57. Their shooting percentage against Kent was 9 points higher than it was against either team. Kent’s shooting percentage was slightly higher than either of Michigan’s  other opponents.
• It was Kent State’s second-biggest margin of defeat in Starkey’s four years. The Flashes lost to then No. 4 Baylor by 40 his first season.
• Saturday’s game against Fort Wayne is at noon at the JAR with a $6 admission that gets you in both games. (Akron plays Michigan at about 2:30.) It’s all part of the Akron Classic, in which Kent State and Akron play the same two teams over two days. On alternate years, including next season, the event is in Kent and becomes the Kent Classic.
• In Friday’s other game, Akron beat Purdue Fort Wayne 64-53 to go 2-0 on the season. Fort Wayne is 2-2.

Box score