This year, the watchword for the Kent State women’s basketball team is “consistency.”
Last year’s team was anything but. The Flashes started 8-1, second best in school history. Victories included wins over UCLA and Penn State.
Then came COVID-19, which canceled a game with Florida State, which is the Flashes’ seasoning opening opponent Thursday at the M.A.C. Center.
COVID lingered through January, and Kent State lost four of its first five Mid-American Conference games, all by fewer than 10 points. KSU won six straight games to start February, then lost four of its last six and missed the league tournament on a tie-breaker.
The Flashes finished 19-12 and split two games in the WNIT.
Thursday’s Florida State game
The game will be the second of a doubleheader with the KSU men, who play Division III Baldwin Wallace at 5 p.m. The women’s game will start a half hour after the men finish, probably between 7 and 7:30 p.m.
Florida State is the first Power 5 team to visit the M.A.C. Center since Ohio State in 2019. The Seminoles were 19-12 last season and made the First Four of the NCAA Tournament. More on FSU at the end of this post.
“This is a team that I think is hungry,” coach Todd Starkey said. “They’re excited to prove that they are better in conference play than we showed last year.”
Returning starters LIndsey Thall and Hannah Young, both fifth-year players, used the word “consistent” about five times in a preseason interview.
“We can’t be up and down in practice or up and down in games,” Young said. “I think if we can be on the same path every single day, we’re going to be fine.”
And one more time from Starkey:
“”If we can stay consistent with our focus, energy and efforts…when we’re shooting the ball well, we can beat anybody,” he said. “The key lies when we’re not shooting the ball well. Can we be consistent enough defensively and in execution?”
The team returns six of its top seven scorers and 11 players from last year. But the Flashes’ biggest personnel loss may dictate a different style of play
Nila Blackford, the 6-2 forward who led the team in rebounding all three of her years in Kent, transferred to Xavier. She was Kent’s workhorse inside, averaging in double figures for three years and earning second-team all-MAC recognition in 2020-21.
The returning forwards, Thall and sophomore Bridget Dunn, were known more for their outside shooting. Thall holds the KSU record for 3-point shots in a career, and Dunn, as a freshman, tied Thall for the team lead in 3-pointers last season.
Dunn and Thall never started at the same time last season (Blackford started 30 games), and they didn’t start together in KSU’s 72-40 exhibition victory over Mercyhurst last Thursday.
But they do give Starkey options this season. The Flashes could play two post players and three guards, the most common lineup in college women’s basketball, or four guards and a post.
“We’ll do some of both,” the coach said. “We started to play that way (four guards) late last year. A lot of it will be based on who we’re playing — if we feel like we have an advantage plaing with two bigs or if we have an advantage of playing with guards.”
The Flashes have a multitude of guards. Young, senior Katie Shumate, senior Clare Kelly and sophomore Casey Santoro all started or played more than 20 minutes a game last season. All three freshmen on the team are guards. One is Corynne Hauser, a two-time Pennsylvania all-stater who averaged 25 points a game her senior year. She scored 11 points against Mercyhurst, tied for second high on the team.
Expect a faster pace from the Flashes.
“We’re trying to be better in the transition game offensively and defensively,” Starkey said. “They’re both areas that we saw really needed evaluating.”
It’s a matter of tempo, the coach said, which means “the ball is moving, the game is moving up and down the court. There’s consistent energy.”
Young said it will “change everybody’s game a little bit.”
“The offense will be moving faster and in transition,” she said. ‘I’m just going to do my part in that and then see where it takes us.”
The 2022-23 Flashes
EXHIBITION STARTING LINEUP
- Lindsey Thall, 6-2 grad student forward
- Katie Shumate, 5-11 senior guard.
- Hannah Young, 5-10 grad student guard.
- Clare Kelly, 5-8 senior guard.
- Casey Santoro, 5-4 junior point guard.
OTHER PLAYERS LIKELY PLAY STARTER MINUTES
- Bridget Dunn, 6-3 sophomore forward.
- Corynne Hauser, 5-7 freshman guard.
The roster by position
FORWARDS: Grad student Lindsey Thall, sophomore Bridget Dunn, grad student Annie Pavlansky, sophomore Jenna Batsch.
GUARDS: Senior Katie Shumate, grad student Hannah Young, senior Clare Kelly, freshman Corryne Hauser, grad student Abby Ogle, freshman Tatiana Thomas, sophomore Lexi Linton.
POINT GUARDS: Junior Casey Santoro, freshman Dionna Gray, redshirt freshman Elena Maier.
By class:
GRAD STUDENTS/FIFTH-YEAR PLAYERS: Lindsey Thall, Hannah Young, Annie Pavlansky, Abby Ogle.
SENIORS: Katie Shumate, Clare Kelly.
JUNIORS: Casey Santoro.
SOPHOMORES: Bridget Dunn, Jenna Batsch, Lexi Linton.
FRESHMEN: Corynne Hauser, Dionna Gray, Tatiana Thomas, Elena Maier (redshirt freshman).
About Florida State
The Seminoles opened their season Monday with a 113-50 victory over Bethune Cookman. FSU also scored at least 115 points in exhibition games beating two Division II schools.
“We’re going to have to be really good at transition defense,” Starkey said. “You don’t score over 100 points to start the season if you don’t have the intention of really getting downhill in transition and trying to score quickly. We’re going to have to contain those types of outbreaks, really limit their transition easy baskets, and force them into tough contested shots.”
In its exhibition, Kent State held Division II Mercyhurst to 40 points, just three in the fourth quarter.
Freshman Ta’Niya Latson led Florida State with 28 points in its opener. Redshirt senior forward Erin Howard had 16 rebounds, and sophomore forward Makayla Timpson had 12 as FSU outrebounded Bethune-Cookman 67-32.
The Seminoles were picked ninth in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.
FSU assistant coach Morgan Toles was an assistant at Kent State during Starkey’s first three years. She is an FSU alum.