By Carl Schierhorn
COVID-19 had kept the Kent State women’s basketball team apart for more than five months.
This week they’re back on the court together.
Through AAU and instructional leagues, most players had been in organized basketball almost year-round since they were in elementary school. Coaches, too.
“Not since I was a kid have I gone five months without basketball,” coach Todd Starkey said in an interview last week.
For the players, “it was tough,” the coach said. “We had conversations with them via Zoom and FaceTime and phone calls every week, touching base and talking with them about mental and physical health.
“They tried to work out on their own. Some had access to weights, some didn’t. Some players had access to baskets. It was challenging, but I think that by and large, they all handled it fairly well. They’re glad to have that phase of it behind them, at least for the time being.”
When the NCAA approved a Nov. 25 start to games last week, they also approved an expanded preseason workout schedule. Until formal practice starts Oct. 10, teams can spend 12 hours a week on strength and conditioning, team meetings and on-court drills. In previous seasons (and this fall before this week), it had been eight hours with severe limitations on on-court activities.
The Flashes, like all Kent State teams, returned to campus weeks later than at many other MAC schools, apparently because KSU safety protocols were more stringent than at other places.
Players started with a COVID test when they returned to campus. (All passed.) Then the team used a four-tier system of “re-entry,” as Starkey called it.
First, one player worked with one coach. Then the team was split into “pods,” where a small group players lived and worked out together. That would have allowed easier contact tracing if someone became infected or was exposure to the virus. Then the size of the pods was increased. Finally, all team members and coaches could work together.
“We’ve been very deliberate and gradual in bringing them back to basketball movements, and coaching and terminology,” Starkey said. “It’s been a process.”
Reworking the schedule
The team had essentially finished its schedule of games before the NCAA moved the start of the season two-and-a-half weeks later.
Starkey isn’t exactly starting over, but there’s work to do.
“There’s a lot of questions that we have to get answers for before we can even start to piece together what Nov. 25 to conference play is going to look like,” Starkey said. “It’s a complicated puzzle.
“We’ve just now reached out today to try and figure out some of those pieces. And we’re waiting to hear back on contract situations. It’s a bit of a mess.“
The NCAA is limiting teams to 28 regular season games if they play in a multi-team tournament. Last season the limit was 31.
The MAC will play a 20-game conference schedule, leaving a maximum of eight non-conference games. Starkey doesn’t think his schedule will have that many.
Two opponents have already backed out of games. The Flashes were scheduled to play at Ohio State, a return trip from OSU’s visit to the M.A.C. Center last season. But Starkey doesn’t know if that game going to happen. He said he has no plans at this point for a multi-team tournament, though “nothing is off the table.”
“I don’t think we’ll get to 27,” he said. “We’ll probably have four or five non-conference games.“
No Kent State Classic
The event in which Akron and Kent State played the same teams over two days won’t happen this year. It’s not because of the change in NCAA scheduling rules.
“We’re having trouble getting two teams to commit because we both continued to get better,” Starkey said. “When we both weren’t quite as good, everybody wanted to play us. Now it’s harder to get people to come in and play us back to back.”
The idea of the event was to alternate between Kent State and Akron, where it was the “Akron Classic.” Last season the Flashes and Zips played Michigan and Purdue Fort Wayne in Akron. The year before Northern Kentucky and Oakland plays Akron and Kent at the M.A.C.C.
No basketball on Election Day
The NCAA Division I Council last week also decided that teams can’t play or practice on Election Day, Nov. 3. It’s a move Starkey strongly endorses.
“We were going to do it anyway,” the coach said. “We’ll have 100% voter registration on our staff and team within a week.
“That’s something we’re really focused on, talking with our team about being proactive and involved on educating yourself. We’re not telling them what to think. That’s on them. We’re just providing them the opportunity to get out and vote, for sure.”