(Top) Elena Maier of suburban Madison, Wisconsin; Bridget Dunn of suburban Indianapolis; Jenna Batsch of suburban Cincinnati, and Lexy Linton of Mt. Holly, New Jersey. (Photos for KSU Twitter feed.)
The Kent State women announced a four-person class of 2021 Wednesday, finishing what coach Todd Starkey called “the most challenging year in recruiting” in his 22-year career.
COVID-19 has disrupted recruiting since March. Coaches weren’t allowed to recruit off-campus, which mean they couldn’t attend spring and summer AAU games; they could not make home visits to players.
Players weren’t allowed formal on-campus visits. So much contact was by Zoom and other electronic means.
“It made our evaluating much more complicated,” he said. “I feel really bad for kids who couldn’t visit campuses. A lot of them had to make decisions without being able to see a place in-person or meet coaching staffs in person.”
Kent State coaches never saw signee Elena Maier, a guard from Wisconsin, play in person. Evaluation of her was done entirely from videos. To Starkey’s knowledge, Lexy Linton, a guard from New Jersey, has never visited the Kent campus. He’s never had a face-to-face conversation with her, though he did see her play in AAU competition in 2018 and earlier.
So coaches spent a great deal of time talking to recruits, their families and their coaches online.
“It’s thrilling for us to be able to put together such a solid class of really good students and athletics in the circumstances,” Starkey said.
All of the incoming players had previously announced their commitments on Twitter. What we learned today was Starkey’s thoughts on his new team members. Coaches aren’t allowed to discuss recruits until they’ve signed their national letters of intent.
The new Flashes are:
BRIDGET DUNN, a 6-3 all-state forward from Carmel High School in suburban Indianapolis.
Dunn averaged 12.3 points and 9.9 rebounds on a fairly low-scoring high school team last season. Prep Girls Hoops rated her the No. 6 prospect in Indiana. Matt VanTryon, who covers girls sports for the Indianapolis Star, has listed her among his top 10 candidates for Miss Basketball in the state.
Dunn had 19 points, five rebounds, four assists and three blocks when her high school beat the preseason No. 2 team in Indiana 66-32 Saturday. Carmel is now ranked No. 1 in Indiana Class 4A.
The Flashes had been recruiting Dunn for several years and offered her a scholarship in summer 2019. Starkey said she had attended several pre-pandemic games in Kent last season.
The coach said she could start to fit the role junior Lindsey Thall has played for the Flashes. Thall, a 6-2 junior forward, has ranked among Mid-American Conference leaders in 3-point shooting and is a strong defensive presence.
“She’s a very skilled stretch post player who’s got great range and can really shoot the ball,” Starkey said. “She’s probably not quite the shot blocker that Lindsay is at this point, but few people are. (Thall has led the MAC in blocks for two years.) As Bridget continues to develop, she is going to going to be a nice fit with what we do.”
LEXY LINTON, a 5-8 guard from southern New Jersey.
Linton scored 840 points in three years at Ranconas Valley High School, averaging 14.9 points per game her senior year. She was a member of NJ.com’s South Jersey “Fab 50.”
She will play her senior season at Jackson Memorial High. Jackson is about 30 miles from Trenton and 60 miles from Philadelphia.
“She is going to be a multi-dimensional perimeter player for us,” Starkey said. “She can defend the one through three, maybe even the one through four.”
(The “one” position is the point guard. “Four” is strong forward.)
Starkey said Linton’s style is similar to that of current assistant coach Alexa Golden, who anchored KSU’s defense as a four-year starter. She’s “a little bit better natural athlete,” the coach said.
Linton is a “vocal, emotional, tough player.” the coach said. On offense, Starkey said, she is “a slasher who, as she continues to develop her skills with a ball in her hands and ability to score on three levels, is going to be a problem for defenses.”
JENNA BATSCH, 6-foot guard from Loveland High School in suburban Cincinnati.
Batsch last year averaged 10.9 points, three steals and just under one block a game for the best team in her school’s history. She shot 48% from the field and was honorable mention all-district.
“She’s another player who’s very versatile,” Starkey said. “She’s a big guard/wing player who could play two through four for us, depending on what we’re doing on offense.
“She has great finishing ability around the basket in transition and a nice face-up game and jump shot. Her best basketball is clearly ahead of her.”
Batsch was one of three Division I recruits on her high school team; the other two are freshmen at Cincinnati and Akron. She has a chance to see a big jump in her statistics this season.
ELENA MAIER, a 5-9 guard from Waunakee High School outside of Madison, Wisconsin.
Maier averaged 14.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.5 steals a game and made 52% of her shots last season. She made her all-conference team her sophomore and junior years.
“Elena is a player who’s kind of flown under the radar,” Starkey said. “She had an ACL injury this past year that set her recruiting back. We’ve had a lot of successful players who have come through here with ACLs in the past, so that doesn’t scare us off.
“We really liked her toughness. She’s a really quick combo guard (point and shooting) who can really shoot it. She’s a tough defender with good ball skills.”
A class with less star power
The Flashes’ previous three classes have included a total of seven players who had made an all-state team by their junior year. Dunn is the only member of this year’s class to do that.
“This class may not rate out as high as some of other our classes,” Starkey said, “but I think people are going to be nicely surprised. Their upside for growth is pretty significant.”
The coach said the Flashes recruited based on need. The Flashes have five players on the current roster who are 6-2 or taller — hence the emphasis on guards in this class.
“We’ll be graduating some pretty significant pieces on the perimeter over the next year or two,” Starkey said. “So we wanted to be able to bring in some players who have the ability to come in and push those upperclassmen but also learn from them.”
The Flashes lose only senior forward Monique Smith and guard Margaux Eibel to graduation next spring. Neither are expected to be in the team’s main rotation this season.
But five juniors, including as many as four likely starters, will finish their fourth year of college next season: Thall, point guard Mariah Modkins, center Linsey Marchese, and guards Hannah Young and Annie Pavlansky.
But there’s a twist on that. The NCAA has said that because of COVID, players do not lose any eligibility this season. So any member of the current team can play an extra year, assuming they and their coaches want that.
“I don’t have an answer for you on what that looks like,” Starkey said. “I’m not sure; I don’t think anybody really is.”
National recruiting
The four recruits are from four different states. I can’t remember a previous KSU player from New Jersey or Indiana.
Starkey has recruited 17 players in his five years at Kent State. They have come from 10 different states: Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, California, Massachusetts, Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey.
“That’s a lot of hard work and a tribute to our coaching staff,” Starkey said. “Some of our best players are from within two hours of here. But we’ve been invested in going after players that are best for us and not just staying regionally.”
Opening Day: Sunday, Nov. 29
The announcement of the team’s non-conference schedule is probably a week or more away, Starkey said.
But we do know the first game: at Northern Kentucky on Sunday, Nov. 29. NKU was 20-12 and fourth in the Horizon League last season. Its RPI was 184 of 349 Division I teams. Kent State was 19-11 in 2019-20) had a 97 RPI.
The 20-game MAC season starts Dec. 30 at Toledo.
Scheduling, of course, assumes no COVID interruptions.