Katie Shumate (14) led Kent State in points, rebounds and assists last season.
The KSU women’s basketball team will open this season without four of its top six scorers from last year.
But nobody is calling 2023-24 a rebuilding year.
Mid-American Conference coaches have picked the Flashes to finish third in the league this season, the highest Kent State has ranked in the preseason in coach Todd Starkey’s eight seasons. The Flashes are ranked 16th in the preseason Mid-Major Poll. 0
Kent State opens its regular season Sunday at Louisiana, then plays defending national champion Louisiana State Tuesday. In an exhibition game last Sunday, the Flashes overwhelmed Division III Muskingham 106-35.
Last season the Flashes went 21-11, their best record since 2005-06.
KSU lost forward Lindsey Thall, guard Hannah Young and guard Clare Kelly to graduation and point guard Casey Santoro through a transfer to Florida Gulf Coast. The four combined for 3,654 points in their time in Kent.
But Starkey has a lot of accomplished players to step into the lineup.
Katie Shumate: All-MAC, past and present
The new season’s roster begins with grad student Katie Shumate, a four-year starter who averaged 17.7 points and 9.7 rebounds her final 12 games last season. Coaches voted her preseason first-team all-conference. She has received post-season all-MAC honors in three of her four years in Kent.
“Her versatility is her biggest strength,” Starkey said. “She’s a phenomenal 3-point shooter and can score in the mid-range. We can post her up against smaller guards or spread the floor and take bigger players off the dribble.
“Based on how she finished last year and how she’s been playing through the summer, she is going to be on a short list of potential player-of-the-year candidates.”
If Shumate represents continuity for the Flashes, the team’s post players show the biggest change.
Punch in the post
For the first time in years, Kent State will have two players whose focus will be on inside, back-to-the-basket scoring and rebounding.
6-foot-2 Mikala Morris is a transfer from Quinnipiac, a traditional mid-major power. In all four years of her years there, she made the first or second all-league team of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
When Morris graduated from Kenton Ridge High School (near Springfield, Ohio) in 2019, she was the all-time leading rebounder (girls or boys) in Ohio high school basketball history. At Kenton Ridge, she scored 2,052 points and blocked 383 shots. In KSU’s exkibition against Muskingham, she led KSU with 11 rebounds in 19 minutes
6-1 Janae Tyler averaged 18.1 points and 12.5 rebounds in a first-team all-state season at Holt High School in Michigan. Both Starkey and her high school coach said she plays three or four inches taller than her actual height.
Starkey said Morris and Taylor will give the KSU offense a different look.
“I think we have the ability to be much more of a physical and imposing team than we’ve been in the past,” the coach said.
Senior guard Abby Ogle said the Flashes will have “an inside presence that will be able to match up with bigger kids a lot better.”
Point guard Corynne Hauser said bigger point players are good for guards.
“Because we can shoot over a zone, they can’t collapse on the inside,” she said. “And that opens up the drivers.”
‘The perfect post complement’
Junior forward Bridget Dunn was leading the team in rebounding when she went down with an ACL injury in February. She’s the tallest player on the team at 6-3, but she’s not the inside presence Morris and Tyler are.
Instead, she’s one of the best 3-point shooters on the team, much like Thall was in her five years as a starter.
“When we were recruit Mikala, we told her, ‘You’re going to play with somebody opposite you who perfectly complements your game,” Starkey said. “Bridget stretches the floor. Do they guard her with a post player or guard her with a guard. So they can’t help off of anybody on the court. We have the ability for a lot more high-low game (when a tall player passes from the foul line to another tall player close to the basket.)”
An all-freshman guard who played hurt last season returns
5-foot-7 Corynne Hauser had surgery early this summer to repair a hip injury suffered in the first month of practice last year.
She still played in every game, was fourth among KSU scorers and led the team in assists. She made the MAC all-freshman team.
A two-time all-stater from Rochester, Pennsylvania, Hauser can play point or shooting guard.
When Hauser is not playing point, sophomore Dionna Gray will run the team on the floor. Gray, player of the year in West Virginia as a high school senior, got extra minutes at the point most of the summer while Hauser recovered from her surgery.
Gray and Hauser combined for 13 assists in last week’s exhibition game.
A junior moves into the lineup
Janna Batsch, a 6-foot-1 guard/forward, started her first college game against Muskingham. She and Tyler led the Flashes in scoring with 14 points each.
Batsch, who said she had worked hard on her 3-point shot, hit two in the exhibition and had two steals.
A wealth of depth in the middle of the rotation
The Flashes have at least four other players who could see significant minutes at guard and forward. 5-10 Tatiana Thomas was a primary substitute after Dunn was hurt last season, Abby Ogle is a defensive specialist who worked on her outside shooting during the off-season (she hit 2-of-2 three-pointers and had two steals against Muskingham.)
Freshman Mya Babbitt was one of the best 3-point shooters in Nebraska last year. She hit eight 3-pointers in the state semifinals, then hit three more in the fourth quarter of her team’s championship victory. Bianca Juzzo is a 5-10 player from Brazil who had five rebounds against Muskingham.
“We have a really deep bench,” Starkey said. “We want to make sure that we’re taxing the other team up and down the floor so that they’re getting fatigued.
The coach said the team is ready for the season.
“I think we’re in a pretty good spot,” he said. “This team definitely has a few more gears, and we’ve going to be able to continue to progress as we go through the season. I like what I’m seeing early.”