Month: January 2022

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Flashes travel to Ball State for a hastily scheduled Sunday afternoon game.

By on Saturday, January 8, 2022
KSU’s Katie Shumate fights for a loose ball. (File photo by David Dermer for KSU athletics.)

The Flashes take the court at Ball State at 1 p.m. in another game that wasn’t supposed to be played for a few weeks.

Kent State originally was supposed to play at Buffalo on Saturday. But COVID-19 problems in Buffalo postponed both Saturday’s game and the Bulls’ Wednesday game at Bowling Green.

Ball State was supposed to play host Miami, which had its own COVID problems.

KSU and Ball State were originally supposed to play later this month. But since they both suddenly had open dates, the MAC decided they should play. The same thing happened when KSU and Akron found themselves without an opponent on Wednesday. The Zips beat KSU 62-61.

The Cardinals are 8-4 and 1-1 in the Mid-American Conference. Kent State is also 8-4 but has lost its first three MAC games.

Ball State hasn’t been a friendly place for KIent State to play. The Flashes have lost 13 straight games, dating back to 1997. (BSU has lost almost as many in Kent.)

Guard Anna Clephane leads the Cardinals with a 16.8 average. Forward Thelma Dis Agustsdottir and guard Sydney Freeman both average 10.8.

KSU’s top scorer is guard Casey Santoro, who averages 13.8 points per game after a career-high 21 points against Akron. Forward Lindsey Thall averages 13.1 points per game, but she’s missed two games in a row because of COVID and may well miss Sunday’s contest.

As of Saturday night, there was no indication that the game was going to be streamed on video. You can follow on the Kent State Radio Network.

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Kent State women's basketball

Struggling Flashes lose third in a row, this time 62-61 to Akron

By on Wednesday, January 5, 2022
KSU freshman Bridget Dunn works to guard Akron’s leading scorer, Jordyn Dawson. Dawson had 18 points, 16 rebounds, four assists and two steals. Dunn had 11 points and five rebounds. (Photo by David Dermer for KSU athletics.)

Kent State coach Todd Starkey admitted he is struggling to figure out his team’s 0-3 start in the Mid-American Conference.

The Flashes fell to Akron 62-61 at the M.A.C. Center Wednesday and are in last place in the conference. KSU had started the season 8-1 and ranked as high as 12th in the College Insider Mid-Major Poll.

Akron is 4-4 and 1-1 in the conference.

Key things from Wednesday’s game:

  1. For the third straight game, the Flashes shot less than 35%. Before Christmas, the team was making more than 43% of its shots.
  2. The team looked out of sync most of the night. Kent State had a season-low seven assists, which is a sign the offense isn’t running well.
  3. The Flashes went on a 10-2 run in the last three-and-a-half minutes of the game but missed a shot as time expired.
  4. Senior forward Lindsey Thall, a key player since her first game as a freshman, missed her second-straight game with COVID-19.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Starkey said to reporters after the game. “We’ve got all-conference players that are struggling to find any kind of rhythm. We’re not knocking down the same shots that we were pre-Christmas. We’re not executing plays we’ve been running with upperclassmen for three years. We get in games, and we look kind of lost.

“We have the same players in the same uniforms, and it’s just completely different. I’ve never experienced that much of a 180 during a season. The coaches look at each other and kind of shake our heads, like, ‘How is this happening?’ But our job is to figure it out.”

Ebbs and flow

For the second-straight game, Kent State fell badly behind early but came back to take a halftime lead. The Flashes trailed 15-6 before they went on a 13-2 run and led 30-27 at the break. The game was tied at 42 going into the fourth quarter. Akron pulled away to lead by as many as nine points, but KSU dominated the last three minutes.

The Flashes pulled within 62-61 with 30 seconds left on two Casey Santoro foul shots, then forced a turnover with 16 seconds to go. But a Santoro drive ended in a crowd under the basket. The ball finally got to Bridget Dunn for an 8-foot jumper shot, but it missed.

“We didn’t execute that well, but we had trouble executing about everything we were trying to do,” Starkey said. “We played hard, but we did not play well virtually the entire game. I don’t think we deserve to win.”

Thall is still out

Lindsey, who had started 83 straight games before missing the Western Michigan game Saturday, was still out with COVID.

“She’s our best player,” Starkey said. “She sets the table for everybody. She helps us execute the offense and is obviously a big offensive threat. But we’ve also played winning basketball when she’s been in foul trouble this year. So we have to be able to work through that. But we are better than this. There’s no question about it.”

Running the numbers

  • Casey Santoro led the Flashes with a career-high 21 points and had three 3-point baskets, four assists and two steals. Katie Shumate had 13 points and Dunn 11, also including three 3-pointers.
  • Nila Blackford had 17 rebounds after grabbing 15 at Western Michigan on Saturday. But she was 3-of-11 shooting and missed all four of her foul shots.
  • Overall, the Flashes shot somewhat better than they had in their previous MAC games. KSU made 34.4% of its shots and 42.1% of 3-pointers. In their first two games, they had averaged 29% shooting and 30% from distance. In non-conference play, KSU had averaged 43.5% from the field and 42% on 3s.
  • The Flashes outrebounded Akron 45-36, the 12th straight game they’ve outrebounded their opponents. KSU had 17 offensive rebounds but only 12 second-chance points. They were outscored in the paint 40-28 and made just 14-of-34 shots in the paint.
  • Akron shot 40.6% and outscored Kent State 17-8 off turnovers and 12-4 on fast breaks.

Next: first-place Buffalo on Saturday

The Bulls tied for first in the league with Toledo at 3-0 and are 9-4 overall. They’ve won all five of their home games and beat Bowling Green (1-1 MAC, 6-5 overall) 82-66 Wednesday. Saturday’s game is at 1 p.m. in Buffalo.

Other MAC scores

  • Western Michigan (2-0 MAC, 8-3) 58, Central Michigan (1-2, 3-9) 44 at Central.
  • Toledo (3-0, 9-3) 64, Eastern Michigan (0-1, 0-5) at Toledol
  • Ball State (1-1, 8-4) 83, Northern Illinois (0-2, 3-7) 82 in overtime at Northern.

Box score

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First COVID shuffle of season has Flashes playing Akron on Wednesday at M.A.C.C.

By on Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Casey Santoro is tied with Lindsey Thall for KSU’s leadership in scoring at 13.1 points per game. Thall missed Saturday’s game with Western Michigan because of “a medical issue,” according to coach Todd Starkey, who is reluctant to talk about players’s specific illnesses or injuries. (File photo by David Dermer for KSU athletics.)

COVID-19 has started to scramble the Mid-American Conference schedule.

Kent State, 0-2 in the conference after a disappointing first week of MAC play, was supposed to play Miami at the M.A.C. Center Wednesday.

Now KSU will play Akron at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the M.A.C.C. The Zips were originally supposed to play Ohio, but the Bobcats have had their third straight game postponed.

Kent State and Akron were originally supposed to play on Jan. 22. For now, that date is open for both teams. A MAC announcement said it will try to reschedule the the KSU-Miami game.

Last season Kent State had at least seven conference games postponed or rescheduled.

Kent State is 8-3 overall this season. Akron is 2-4 and 0-1 in league play. Its wins have come against Robert Morris (5-6) and Detroit Mercy (0-11). The Zips lost its MAC opener Saturday to Toledo 64-58. Toledo had won at Kent State Wednesday 69-60.

Like Kent State, Akron returned most of its players from last season. Junior forward Jordyn Dawson led the Zipsin scoring last season and does again, averaging 18.0 points and 6.7 rebounds a game.

Akron had its final two non-conference games of the season canceled. KSU’s Dec. 21 game against Florida State also was canceled. All of the postponements and cancelations have been because of COVID-19 protocols. Second-leading scorer is 6-2 freshman Reagan Bass, who averages 8.3.

Akron averages about 63 points a game on offense, which ranks 11th in the MAC, and 63 on defense, which ranks fourth. The Zips are 11th in rebounding margin at -4.4.

Kent State leads the league in rebounding with a +10.3 average. The Flashes have averaged only 55.5 points in its two MAC games after averaging 77.8 in an 8-1 non-conference season.

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Kent State women's basketball

Another shooting struggle, another loss for Kent State, this time at Western Michigan

By on Saturday, January 1, 2022
Playing her best game of the year, Clare Kelly led the Flashes with 17 points and four 3-point baskets. (KSU file photo by David Dermer.)

For Kent State, the big question after an 0-2 start in the Mid-American Conference is simple:

Where has all the shooting gone?

For the second-straight game, the Flashes shot far below their season average and fell on the road to Western Michigan 55-51.

In their 8-1 non-conference season, Kent State made 43.5% of its shots and 42% of its 3-point attempts. The 3-point average was third in the country.

But in its two MAC games, the Flashes have shot just 29.2% from the field and 27.6% on 3-pointers. KSU scored 60 points in its Wednesday loss to Toledo and 51 against Western Michigan. A week ago, they were averaging 77.8 points a game, second on the conference.

Against Western, the Flashes made 16-of-55 shots and 8-of-27 three-pointers.

Key things to know:

  1. Kent State shot more than 10 percentage points below its average in field goals and on 3-pointers while scoring its fewest points of the season.
  2. Western Michigan scored the first nine points of the game and led 13-2, but KSU came back to lead 51-50 with 16 seconds left. A 3-point basket by the Broncos won the game.
  3. Western outscored Kent in the paint 34-14. The Flashes missed 11-of-18 layups.

“We’ve got to put the ball in the basket,” coach Todd Starkey said. “We’re just missing good looks. We have to be better at finishing around the basket. We’ve got to be better at knocking down shots. We practice these things every day. I don’t have any magical solution.”

A very slow start

Kent State missed its first three shots of the game and turned the ball over three times in the first 1:49. Western made four of its first five shots.

After a timeout and some stern words from Starkey, the Flashes closed the margin to 15-10 at the end of the first quarter.

The teams played evenly — 41-40 KSU — for the rest of the game. After Kent tied the game 16-16, neither team led by more than four points.

In the fourth quarter, the Flashes took a 49-48 lead on a four-point play by Kelly, then made it 51-50 on a pass from Katie Shumate to Nila Blackford for a basket with 1:16 to go. After both teams missed shots and turned the ball over, Western’s Abby Voss hit a 3-pointer with 16 seconds to go to give the Broncos the lead. The Flashes missed a 3-pointer on their next possession, and WMU clinched the game with free throws.

Clare Kelly’s best game of the season

Kelly, who started 13 games last season, had averaged only two points a game this year off the bench. On Saturday, she led the Flashes ith 17 points, making 6-of-12 field-goal attempts and 4-of-9 three-pointers. She played a season-high 34 minutes.

“She was just doing what she’s capable of doing,” Starkey said. “She played well last game as well, especially defensively. She’s been putting a lot more effort and energy into it, playing through mistakes. She just played well. We didn’t have a whole lot of people really join her as far as playing well.”

Kent’s leading scorers, Shumate and Casey Santoro, went a combined 3-for-23 shooting. Hannah Young, who had posted double-doubles in KSU’s previous two games, scored two points and had one rebound. Shumate did have four rebounds, four assists and two steals. Santoro had nine rebounds, four assists and two steals. An 83% foul shooter going into the game, she made only 3-of-8 as KSU went 11-for-19 from the line.

Blackford had 10 points and a season-high 15 rebounds.

“She had a lot of rebounds, but we need her to score more,” Starkey said.

Blackford led KSU in scoring last season at 15.5 point per game, made the all-MAC second team and was a second-team preseason pick this year. She is averaging five points fewer ths year.

Blackford had five offensive rebounds. Kent State had 11 offensive rebounds total but scored only eight points from them.

Starkey said the team needed to do better converting rebounds into points.

“We’ve got to get more offensive rebounds, flip backs, easy baskets,” the coach said. “We’re struggling to score easy baskets right now.”

Kent State struggled inside, making only 7-of-18 layups. Western outscored the Flashes in the paint 34-14.

KSU outrebounded the Broncos 40-25. The Flashes have beaten every team they’ve played this season on the boards.

Lindsey Thall misses her first game in four years

Thall, KSU’s third-leading scorer and rebounder, had started all 83 games in her career. But she missed Saturday’s game “for medical reasons,” Starkey said.

Western Michigan was missing one of its best players, too. Sophomore Taylor Williams was out with COVID-19. She was one of the MAC’s best freshmen last season and has averaged 13.4 points and 9.0 rebounds this season.

Freshman Bridget Dunn started in Thall’s place. She scored nine points and had four rebounds.

Next: Miami at home on Wednesday

Kent State is now 0-2 in the MAC and 8-3 on the season. The Flashes will play Miami (0-1 MAC, 4-6 overall) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the M.A.C. Center. Miami lost to first-place Buffalo (2-0, 8-4) 88-83 at home Saturday. Buffalo ran out to a 29-12 first-quarter lead, but Miami outscored the Bulls the rest of the way.

Other MAC scores

  • Central Michigan (1-1 MAC, 3-8) 72, Northern Illinois (0-1, 3-6) 68 at Central.
  • Bowling Green (1-0, 6-4) 82, Ball State (0-1, 7-4) 58 at BG.
  • Toledo (2-0, 8-3) 64, Akron (0-1, 3-4) 58 at Toledo.

Box score

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