The Kent State women’s basketball team hadn’t beaten a Power 5 school since 2010. Coach Todd Starkey had never beaten one.
But on Sunday the Flashes led for 37 of 40 minutes in their 81-74 victory over Penn State. On Friday, they had beaten No. 19 UCLA 75-69.
Sunday’s win gave KSU (5-1) third place in the Gulf Coast Showcase tournament. The team had lost to Massachusetts 72-64 in Saturday’s semifinals.
Kent State’s start is its best since 2010, when it went 6-0, including their last victory over a Power 5 team. That was a 59-58 win against the PAC 12’s Washington in another holiday tournament.
“How about that — two Power 5s in three days,” Starkey exclaimed in a postgame interview. “I’m really proud of this group. We’ve still got a lot more more to do, and I’ve got bigger dreams for this program. But it’s a great validation of what we’ve begun to build.”
All about KSU’s 75-69 win over UCLA.
The Penn State game had many good story lines:
- Five Kent State players scored in double figures. A sixth scored nine points. Two players had double-doubles.
- Senior Lindsey Thall became the 23rd Kent State player to score 1,000 points.
- KSU overwhelmed a taller Penn State team on the boards, outrebounding them 46-23 with a 17-3 advantage in offensive rebounds.
- The game was often close, but the Flashes led for 37 of the 40 minutes.
An offense where anyone can score
It’s quite telling that on Saturday, in the only game Kent State has lost this season, only one player scored in double figures.
In KSU’s two wins this weekend, five Flashes scored at least 10 points.
On Sunday, it was junior guard Katie Shumate with 17 points, Thall with 16, sophomore guard Casey Santoro with 15, junior forward Nila Blackford with 13 and freshman forward Bridget Dunn with 10. Hannah Young just missed joining them with nine points.
“This is one of the things that separates us from other teams,” Thall said. “When we get multiple people in double figures, it’s hard to stop us. And anybody can have an awesome night on any given day.”
The Flashes had 15 assists — highest this season against a Division I opponent — on 28 baskets. Eight different players had an assist, led by three from Shumate, Young and Santoro.
“Those are the best kind of games to play in, when the ball is moving across the court, and then we’re hitting big shots,” Thall said. “There’s nothing better than that.”
6:43 4Q | Kent State 63, Penn State 51
Casey Santoro lays it in and the Flashes have scored 7 straight to take largest lead of the game.#GoFlashes ⚡ pic.twitter.com/vi6FNTjGOC
— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 28, 2021
Starkey said KSU’s balance was the strength of the team.
“We were a lot more connected all the way around tonight,” he said. “We really shared the basketball. When we play that way, it’s really, really tough to beat us.”
1,006 points for Thall
Thall became the 23rd player in Kent State history to score 1,000 points. She finished the game with six more.
59.4 3Q | Kent State 51, Penn State 47
Lindsey Thall scored her 1,000th career point at the free throw line with under a minute left in the period.#GoFlashes ⚡ pic.twitter.com/ARydxbxUjk
— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) November 28, 2021
In a postgame interview, KSU announcer David Wilson asked Thall if she had thought she would score 1,000 when she enrolled at Kent State four years ago.
“I only hoped that I could contribute any way I could, and scoring is one way,” she said. “It’s an honor to be one of those 23 players.”
And to do that while beating Penn State?
“It was a good one. I definitely wouldn’t want it to be any other game,” Thall said.
Starkey had nothing but praise for his senior forward.
“A thousand points, and she’s got a lot more coming,” he said. “What a great three days she had down here!”
Thall scored 20 points against UCLA, 22 against Massachusetts and 16 against Penn State. She made 10-of-24 three-point shots and grabbed a total of 26 rebounds.
Thall made the Gulf Coast all-tournament team.
A rebounding rout for KSU
Kent State’s 23-rebound margin over Penn State was its biggest this season, six more than their margin against Division III John Carroll in KSU’s 101-40 victory. It was even more lopsided on the offensive boards, where the Flashes led 17-3.
“Phenomenal,” said Starkey, using one of his favorite words.
Ali Brigham, Penn State’s leading rebounder, stands 6-4 and had 10 rebounds in the team’s win over St. Johns on Friday. She had three against Kent State. Forward Anna Camden stands 6-3. She had two rebounds.
Thall and Blackford are KSU’s tallest starters at 6-2.
Brigham scored only three points, often going against Blackford.
“Oh, wow,” Blackford said when told that statistic.
Blackford and Thall combined had more rebounds (26) than Penn State’s entire team (23).
A pair of double-doubles
Blackford led all rebounders with 14 and added 13 points, both her best totals of the season She had her best three rebounding games of the season in the tournament, grabbing more in every game.
“I’m really proud of Nila for coming back and having a good game,” Starkey said. “She struggled yesterday (2-for-12 shooting and five turnovers) and was feeling kind of down about it.
“We talked to her about what she needed to do to stay aggressive and finish around the basket. She did a good job of really battling for rebounds against some really big players.”
Thall had 10 rebounds, including four offensive boards, to go with her 16 points. It was the second double-double of her career. She averaged 8.7 rebounds over the tournament’s three games.
KSU had something to prove
The Flashes were outscored 45-29 in the second half of Saturday’s loss to Massachusetts and were out to show they were better than that.
“We know we did not perform to our best at all,” Blackford said. “We came out here today and said, ‘That’s not the type of team that we are, and we’re going to show you.'”
“We knew we were better than that,” Starkey said. “I don’t know whether we had a little bit of malaise from the UCLA game. So we wanted to come out and play as tough as we had before yesterday. And this group really showed the kind of people we’re about.”
Starkey had worried about Penn State’s transition game, and the Lady Lions came out running in the second half (“a Navy blur going by us, coming in waves” he said.)
But midway through the quarter, KSU adjusted its defense to drop three players back in transition defense. That slowed down Penn State.
A close game, but Flashes stayed in control
Kent State led almost the entire game, but it wasn’t easy. The Flashes jumped off to a 18-8 first-quarter lead, but Penn State cut it to 32-30 at the half.
The Lady Lions took brief one-point leads twice in the third quarter. But after a scramble in the final seconds of the quarter, Young hit a long 2-point basket at the buzzer to send KSU into the fourth quarter with a 53-49 lead.
Kent State started the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run, led by 3-pointers from Thall and Santoro. Penn State cut KSU’s lead to 74-70 with 1:51 to go, but the Flashes scored the next five points.
23 points but 20 shots
Penn State’s leading scorer, Makenna Marisa, hit her average of 23 points.
“We knew she was probably going to get 20 again, but we wanted make sure she got 20 points on 20 shots,” Starkey said. “And she got 23 points on 21 shots. So we did our job there.”