As soon as Kent State coaches saw their pairing for the first round of the WNIT, they knew they faced a difficult task.
The Flashes were going on the road to play Syracuse of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which had gone 18-12 this season and was 14-3 in home games.
They were going to face Felisha Legette-Jack, who became Syracuse head coach last summer after 10 years at Buffalo. She went 15-3 against Kent State in Mid-American Conference play.
They were going to take on Daisha Fair, the Syracuse guard who had been all-MAC for three years at Buffalo, averaging more than 23 points a game. She and three teammates followed Legette-Jack to Syracuse.
So the Flashes’ season ended with an 84-56 defeat at the hands of the Orange. Kent State’s final record is 21-11, its most victories since 2005-06. KSU finished fourth in the MAC with a 12-6 record and won its first quarterfinal game in the league tournament since 2010. In the preseason, it beat Oklahoma State of the Big 12 at Oklahoma State 59-56.
“As soon as we got the matchup, we were like — seriously?” coach Todd Starkey said. “It’s tough to play in the postseason on somebody’s home court. A lot of things had to go right for us today, and they probably had to help us a little bit. Neither one of those things happened.”
Those things did happen in the first quarter, when the Flashes took a 16-13 lead.
KSU guard Katie Shumate scored five points and had seven rebounds, and the Flashes held Syracuse to 28% shooting and no 3-point baskets.
Kent State led 26-25 with 4:24 to go in the second when, but that was it for the Flashes.
Syracuse forced six turnovers in the next four minutes and made 7-of-7 shots, almost all on fast breaks from the turnovers. Kent State got one shot off, a made 3-pointer by Casey Santoro.
Syracuse started the second half on an 18-8 run and outscored the Flashes 46-27 in the second half. Kent State never got within 15 points in the last quarter-and-a-half.
In the end, KSU turnovers meant defeat.
The Flashes had committed fewer than 10 turnovers in seven of their last eight games. (The committed 12 in the eighth.)
But against Syracuse, KSU turned the ball over 19 times, leading to 25 points by the Orange. Syracuse stole the ball 12 times, equaling the most by a Kent opponent all season.
“We had been doing a really good job over the last couple of months of taking care of the basketball, and that kind of betrayed us today,” Starkey said. “But that’s what Syracuse does.”
Fair had 11 points in the second quarter and 10 in the third. She finished with 24 on 10-of-19 shooting.
“We had some costly turnovers and, and Fair got going,” Starkey said. “That’s not a great combination.
“A lot of people said in the off-season that they didn’t think the Fair could play in the ACC. She averaged 20 a game and was all-ACC first team.”
As she’s done the entire second half of the season, senior Katie Shumate led the Flashes, this game with 18 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and a steal. It was her third double-double in a row, including both games in the MAC Tournament on her way to all-tournament honors. She averaged 17.7 points and 9.6 over her last 12 games.
“She’s literally been lifting us to higher places,” Starkey said. “She just started playing aggressively. It’s not that I’m surprised that she did any of that. I think it was getting past some of the injuries that she’s dealt with over the last few years and getting finally healthy and playing confidently again.”
Starkey said that it’s “his understanding at this point” that Shumate will return for a fifth season next year.
Santoro was the only other Kent State player in double figures with 13 points. She also had three assists, four rebounds and a steal.
Clare Kelly had eight points for the Flashes, Hannah Young seven and five rebounds, and Corynne Hauser six points.
It was the last game of their college careers for Young, Kelly, Lindsey Thall and Annie Pavlansky.
Thall leaves as Kent State’s all-time leader in made 3-point baskets (267, which is 55 more than second-place Larissa Lurken). She started every game she played in five years, missing five because of illness.
Young made 43.3% of her 3-point shots in her career, 0.2 percentage points KSU all-team leader, Kate Miller, who played a single season in 2001-02.
Young played in the most games in KSU history (142). Thall was just behind with 140.
As he’s done for most of the last two weeks, Starkey praised his four graduating seniors.
“You can’t find a better group of young women — character-wise, classroom-wise or, or what they’ve done on the court,” he said.
Notes
- Syracuse advances to play the winner of Thursday’s game between Seton Hall and St. Joseph’s.
- Kent State is now 2-7 in seven WNIT appearances. Both victories have come under Starkey. The Flashes are 1-5 in five NCAA Tournament appearances.
- 84 points were the most any team has scored against Kent State this season. The 28-point margin was the biggest against KSU.
- Kent State made 40.4% of its shots, about 2 points below its average, and 25.9% of its 3-pointers, which was almost 9 points below average.
- Syracuse outrebounded KSU 41-30, outscored the Flashes 41-30 in the paint and had 11 fastbreak points. KSU had zero points from fast breaks.