After Kent State lost to Northern Illinois on Jan. 26 and fell to 2-6 in the Mid-American Conference, coach Todd Starkey vowed, “February will be our month.”
So far, he’s a prophet.
The Flashes beat third-place Ball State 64-61 at the M.A.C. Center Saturday for their fifth straight victory, all in the last 11 days. The win moves KSU to 7-6 in the MAC and into a tie for fifth place, just a game behind third-place Akron (8-5). Kent is 15-7 overall.
Ball State is fourth in the league at 7-5 and 14-8 overall.
“This team had multiple opportunities to pack it when things weren’t going our way in January,” Starkey said. “We pressed the reset button and said, ‘Let’s dig in our heels and fight through February.’ That’s what they decided to do.”
The first four games in KSU’s winning streak came against the bottom three teams in the standings. But Ball State had won five games in a row before Saturday.
Starkey warned that there are still seven games to go in the regular season.
“All we’ve done is dig our way out of a hole,” Starkey said. “We’re back in the mix but still only one game above .500. We’ve still got a long way to go. I think we have pretty significant room to grow on the offensive end, which gives me great hope.”
Senior Lindsey Thall said KSU’s January losses, which were all by fewer than seven points, were a testing for a team.
“We’ve just learned our lesson from those games,” she said. “We’re learning how to pull away or keep a lead and we know how to play when we don’t have a lead.”
On the defensive
The victory was the second for the Flashes over Ball State this season. Like KSU’s 54-51 win in January, it was a close, defensive battle.
Kent State jumped to a 20-11 first-quarter lead, but Ball State put on a 17-4 run in the second. KSU led 30-27 at halftime.
Both teams scored 17 points in the third and fourth quarter, and neither team led by more than five in the second half.
Ball State went into the game making 9.5 three-point baskets per game and shooting more than 36% behind the arc. Against KSU, the Cardinals had seven 3-pointers and shot 30.4%.
“We’ve been able to hang our hat on defense recently,” Starkey said. “That’s the way we’ve gotten back in the conference race. Other than their run, I thought we were pretty dominant defensively.”
The Flashes rank second in the MAC in scoring defense, allowing 61.4 per game.
“We talked about if we can hold them close to our conference average, we’d have a good chance to win,” Starkey said.
One of Kent State’s mottos is “defend without fouling.” Ball State shot just four free throws, making all of them. KSU was 12-of-15 from the line.
Down to the last minute (again)
Half of Kent State’s games (and five of their six losses) have been decided in the last minute.
On Saturday, KSU led 59-56 with 35 seconds to go. Ball State cut it to one with a layup, then close again to 62-61 on a 3-point basket with 12 seconds to go. After Casey Santoro made two free throws, 6-2 Thall played good defense in the corner to make 5-8 Ally Becki miss at the buzzer.
Driving into the paint
Ball State came in with a defense designed to slow KSU’s Nila Blackford, who had averaged 18 points in Kent’s last six games.
So the Flashes went to drives to the basket by Katie Shumate and Santoro to get many of their points.
Shumate scored 20 on 7-of-16 shooting and 2-of-3 three-point attempts.
“It was their game plan to really, really clog the paint,” Starkey said. “It opened up some stuff for Katie and Nila.”
Shumate regularly drove into the paint, where “she’s really good at scoring,” the coach said.
“That kind of got us rolling,” he said. “She’s tough to handle when she has that mindset.”
Santoro had two 3-pointers and two hard drives to the basket on her way to 16 points. She made 5-of-6 free throws in the fourth quarter.
Blackford got off just seven shots and had six points and six rebounds. She did have a key basket in the fourth quarter when she ripped the ball out of a Ball State players’ hands after a rebound, then put back a layup. That gave KSU a 55-54 lead.
3:16 4Q | Kent State 55, BSU 54
“Gimme that!” – Nila Blackford (probably)#GoFlashes ⚡️#Play4Kay 💗 pic.twitter.com/7xhukFEbOT
— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) February 12, 2022
Video highlights, with many nice scoring plays and KSU’s defensive stop in the last seconds.
Running the numbers
- Kent State made 25-of-58 shots for 41.% and 8-of23 (34.8%) from 3-point distance, both close to its MAC averages.
- The Flashes had 10 turnovers in the first half but just three in the second. The led to six BSU points. Ball State had 11 turnovers, from which Kent scored seven.
- The Flashes outrebounced Ball State 34-30, the 19th time in 22 games KSU has outrebounded its opponents. Blackford, Thall, Bridget Dunn and Clare Kelly all had at lest four.
- Kent State’s bench outscored Ball State’s 26-4. “We have eight players who could start for us,” Starkey said.
- BSU freshman Marie Kiefer blocked five Kent State shots, and Becki, also a freshman, had 12 points and 12 rebounds. Junior guard Sydney Freeman led the Cardinals with 17 points.
Next: Northern Illinois at the M.A.C.C.
Kent State hosts NIU at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Huskies (7-7 MAC, 10-12 overall) beat Kent State 61-55 in the last minute in January.
Northern, which is tied for seventh place, upset second-place Buffalo (10-4, 16-8) 69-64 in overtime in DeKalb on Saturday.
Other MAC scores
- First-place Toledo (13-1, 19-4) 80, Bowling Green (6-6, 11-10) 51 at Toledo.
- Third-place Akron (8-5, 11-8) 64, Eastern Michigan (2-11, 5-15) 53 at Eastern.
- Fifth-place Western Michigan (7-6, 13-9) 80, Ohio (5-6, 11-9) 73 at Ohio.
- Miami (4-9, 8-14) 90, Central Michigan (2-12, 4-19) 77 at Miami.