Point guard Dionna Gray had a season-high 12 points and a career-high nine rebounds in Kent State’s 76-64 win over Eastern Michigan. (File photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

When point guard Corynne Hauser was recovering from a knee injury last summer, sophomore Dionna Gray worked with the Kent State starters every day.

Now, with Hauser apparently out for the season with another knee injury, Gray is guiding the team on the floor in the regular season’s final weeks.

Gray and her teammates used a fast start and a strong third quarter to beat Eastern Michigan on Wednesday and run their record to 12-3 in the Mid-American Conference and 17-8 overall.

Eastern Michigan is 2-13 and in last place in the MAC. Overall, the Eagles are 5-20.

The Flashes have clinched a tie for third in the MAC but have to face the other top teams in the league in their final three teams. It starts with fourth-place Buffalo, which is three games behind KSU at 9-6, on Saturday at the M.A.C. Center. Then comes a home game against second-place Ball State (13-2 MAC, 24-4 overall) next Wednesday. The Flashes finish their regular season on Saturday, March 9, at first place Toledo (14-1, 22-4).

Then all those teams and the next best four will meet in the MAC Tournament in Cleveland March 13-16.

Gray, Katie Shumate (23 points) and Jenna Batsch (21 points) were the stars of Wednesday’s win.

“Dionna got valuable minutes with the starters last summer,” Starkey said, “and that was great preparation for what she’s doing now. She’s a different type of player than Corynne, but she’s a very good player.”

Gray was Gatorade West Virginia Player of the Year in 2022. Since entering the KSU starting lineup five games ago, she has averaged 4.8 assists a game. If she held that average for a full season, she would be tied for second in the MAC in assists.

“It’s not like Dionna’s a new player to the team,” Starkey said. “She was playing 12 to 15 minutes a game for us.”

Now she is playing closer to 35 minute every game.

“She’s our fastest player with the ball in the open court, so she really helps our transition game go,” Starkey said. “She can get downhill and score, and you have to guard her the 3-point line because she’s a very capable shooter.

“Defensively she’s solid all the way around. And she doesn’t let teams bully her because of her size (5-foot-4). To have nine rebounds against one of the top rebounding teams in the league shows you what her effort looks like.”

Shumate put up her usual big numbers with 23 points, nine rebounds and three steals. But she provided the biggest concern after the game. Shumate collided with an EMU player with about two minutes to play, lay on the floor for several minutes, then struggled to put weight on her ankle as she was helped off the floor. Trainers worked on her ankle for more minutes on the sideline.

Starkey said she will be evaluated Thursday after the team returned to Kent and didn’t know how badly she was hurt.

“She went down pretty hard,” Starkey said. “But for now, I’m going to remain optimistic.”

Batsch made 7-of-16 shots and 6-of-7 free throws. She had four assists and two steals.

“When she plays within herself, she’s a really tough player to defend,” Starkey said.

Kent State jumped to an 18-4 lead but managed only nine points in the second quarter as Eastern rallied to make the score 30-28 at halftime.

But Kent State shot 61% in the third quarter and outscored EMU 31-19. Eastern closed within four in the fourth quarter, but KSU went on a 13-1 run to put the game out of reach.

“I don’t like how up and down we played tonight,” Starkey said. “I love the way we started. Then we started changing the way we played for some reason and weren’t executing. We really struggled in the second quarter. When you give teams hope, they pick up their intensity.

“I thought we played great basketball in the third quarter — scored 31 points, got stuff into paint and really played within ourselves.”

NEXT: Buffalo at 1 p.m. Saturday at the M.A.C. Center and on ESPN+.

Starkey calls it the “toughest finish in the conference” — No. 4 Buffalo, No. 2 Ball State and No. 1 Toledo. Buffalo won at fifth-place Bowling Green 70-55 on Tuesday, Ball State routed Akron 75-41 and Toledo defeated Northern Illinois 74-61 in DeKalb.

Numbers:

• Kent State made 27-of-56 shots for 48.2%. Eastern Michigan was 35-for-54 for 39%.
• The Flashes outrebounded EMU 38-34.
• Each team had 16 turnovers. Eastern scored 23 points off of them, KSU 20.

Box score

Janae Tyler scored 16 points, equaling her career high against Division I teams, and made 7-of-10 shots. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

Freshman forward Janae Tyler says she’s grown more confident as her first year progresses.

The word coach Todd Starkey uses is “comfortable.”

Whatever term you use, the 6-foot forward is heading toward the end of an excellent first year of college basketball.

Tyler helped lead Kent State to a 73-51 victory over Akron Saturday, pushing the Flashes’ Mid-American Conference record to 11-3 and overall record to 16-8. KSU remains in third place in MAC, two games behind Toledo. The Rockets (13-1 MAC, 21-4 overall) pounded second-place Ball State (12-2, 23-4) 70-48 on Saturday.

Akron is 4-10 and in 10th place in the conference and is 9-16 overall.

“I knew coming in I would have a lot to adjust to from high school to college basketball,” Tyler said, “but I’m definitely a lot more confident offensively and defensively.”

Tyler scored 16 points in KSU’s win over Akron, equaling her season-high against a Division I team. (She had 22 against Division II Lake Erie College.) She is fourth in scoring among the Flashes at 9.2 points per game, though she is averaging only about 15 minutes per game. Her 3.8 rebounding average also places her fourth.

“I think she’s understanding the college game better,” Starkey said. “Her level of comfort with game plans and scouts and knowing her teammates has just continued to grow. That’s what you’re seeing now.”

Senior guard Katie Shumate said Tyler and graduate student transfer Mikala Morris have changed the team’s identity

“It’s valuable to have someone of her size, aggressiveness and overall IQ for the game,” Shumate said. “She’s able to guard and play in the post, something we haven’t had in the past. I feel the difference every game.”

Tyler made seven of her 10 shots, leading the Flashes to a 53.1% shooting percentage, their highest of the season against a Division I school.

“Our execution was excellent,” Starkey said. “If you 50-50-90 game like we did today (shooting percentages from the floor, 3-point distance and the free-throw line), you’re gonna win a lot of basketball games.”

Kent’s defense was also outstanding, the coach said.

“To hold them to 21 points in the second half was phenomenal,” Starkey said.

Tyler helped the defense hold Reagan Bass, the MAC’s leading rebounder and third-leading scorer, to eight points and six rebounds. That’s about half of her average totals.

“It’s definitely very exciting to match up with someone like that,” Tyler said. “I think it just boosts my confidence and how much of a difference I can be.”

The game was Kent State’s first since it lost 79-77 at Ohio on Wednesday. It was KSU’s first defeat by a team with a below-.500 record this season.

“It was just letting it hurt a little bit,” Shumate said, “then working on that moving forward and understanding that we don’t want to feel that way again.”

Shumate led Kent State with 18 points, and Jenna Batsch had 12. Bridget Dunn led with seven rebounds as the Flashes outrebounded Akron 36-25. Point guard Dionna Gray had seven points, five assists and three steals.

Attendance was announced at 2,080, highest of the season in the M.A.C. Center.

“We felt the energy,” Starkey said. “When we went on runs, the crowd was responding, and that’s great for our players. It does give them juice.”

NEXT: At Eastern Michigan on Wednesday. The game is on ESPN+.

The Flashes travel to EMU, a team they beat 66-57 in Kent in January. Eastern is in last place in the MAC at 2-12 and is 6-19 overall. The Eagles scored only 16 points in the first half against Miami Saturday and lost 48-37.

Box score

Katie Shumate scored 22 points in the first half and 27 for the game, both equaling career-highs. She had 11 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the season and made four 3-point baskets. (File photo from KSU Athletics.)

Kent State went into its game with Ohio University allowing just 62 points a game in MId-American Conference play.

Ohio scored 79 points and held on through a nail-biting final minute of play to beat the Flashes 79-77 on Wednesday night in Athens

“Our defensive side of the ball really let us down,” coach Todd Starkey said. “You can’t give up 79 points in conference play. We scored 77 and expect to win games like that because of our defense.”

Kent is still in third place in the Mid-American Conference with a 10-3 record (15-8 in all games.) The Flashes are three games ahead of Buffalo and Bowling Green, which are tied for fourth. But KSU falls two games behind 11-1 Ball State and 11-1 Toledo, who are tied for first.

Ohio is 5-8 in the MAC and alone in eighth place, the last spot in the standings that makes the conference tournament. The Bobcats are 8-16 overall. Both teams have five games to play before the tournament in Cleveland next month.

In Wednesday’s second half, Ohio took only 22 shots but made 14 of them (64%). The Flashes took 15 more shots but made only 13 total. That’s 37% for the half and only 29% in the third quarter.

Kent State led 42-41 at halftime, but Ohio outscored the Flashes 34-27 in the first 15 minutes of the second half to take a 75-65 lead.

Starkey said the Flashes were struggling against Ohio’s 1-on-1 drives to the basket.

“They were spreading us out, getting downhill and scoring at the basket or scoring on a kick-out 3,” Starkey said.

Then the Flashes tried to play zone to cut off the drives, and the Bobcats made four 3-pointers in the third quarter.

Then KSU tried a smaller lineup.

“We tried to match up with them on the perimeter and that didn’t help us either,” Starkey said. “You try certain things when a team is in rhythm like that. It either throws them off or it doesn’t.”

It didn’t until the last four minutes of the game, when KSU came back to tie the score at 77 with 19 seconds left on a 3-point basket by Bridget Dunn.

The last 19 seconds saw Ohio hit two foul shots to take the lead back. Then Jenna Batsch hit a short running jump shot that would have tied the game with six seconds to go, but she was called for an offensive foul.

“That’s a huge call that didn’t go in our favor,” Starkey said. “I thought Jenna had a really good shot there.”

The Flashes forced a turnover with four seconds left, but Batsch’s 12-foot jump shot at the buzzer missed.

Katie Shumate scored 22 points in the first half, more than half of KSU’s points and equaling the best single-half output of her career. She finished with 27 points, equaling her career-high.

“She gave us everything she had,” Starkey said. “In the second half, they were really focused on her. They took away all the driving lanes and double-teamed her on post catches.”

Batsch had 15 points, 13 in the second half, and Dunn scored 13, with 10 coming in the second half.

Dionna Gray, starting her third straight game at point guard after an apparent season-ending injury to Corynne Hauser, had eight assists and only one turnover.

Ohio’s Jaya McClure had 26 points. She was injured and didn’t play when KSU pounded the Bobcats 92-63 in January.

NEXT: Akron at home on Saturday.

The Flashes will host the Zips, a team they beat 69-60 last month, at 1 p.m. Saturday at the M.A.C. Center. The game is also on ESPN+.

Akron lost to Bowling Green at home 74-68 on Wednesday. The Zips are 4-9 in the conference and 9-15 overall.

Box score

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Mikala Morris, Kent State’s graduate transfer from Quinnipiac, scored 16 points in KSU’s 77-54 win over Central Michigan. It was her second-highest total of the season. (File photo from Kent State Athletics.)

Mikala Morris’s father, Ben, drove five hours on his birthday to watch his daughter play against Central Michigan.

It was worth it.

Mikala, a graduate student transfer and post player, scored 16 points and grabbed six rebounds to help lead the Flashes past Central Michigan 77-54 on the road on Saturday.

Kent State is now 10-2 and still in third place in the Mid-American Conference, a game behind 11-1 Ball State (21-3) and 11-1 Toledo (19-4). The Flashes are 15-7 overall.

Central is 3-9 in the MAC and 5-18 overall.

Morris’s 16 points were her second-highest in a Kent State uniform.

“I came in with the mindset of aggressive attack,” she said in a postgame radio interview. “I felt good, I felt hot all day, and I wanted to perform very well for my dad.”

Unlike many post players, Morris scores as many points on short- and intermediate-range jump shots as she does under the basket.

“Even in high school, she had a nice face-up jump shot, and she makes those just as she does layups,” said coach Todd Starkey, who recruited Morris out of Kenton Ridge High School near Dayton, then again after she played four years at Quinnipiac University. “That puts a lot of pressure on the defense.”

Morris missed two games in January because of an ankle injury.

“She still isn’t 100%,” Starkey said, “but it was really nice to see her back in her true form. If we can get that type of productivity out of her, that’s going to be big for us moving forward.”‘

Morris splits time at the post with freshman Janae Tyler, who in 17 minutes matched Morris’s 12 points and six rebounds+. Tyler is from Holt, Michigan, about an hour from Central Michigan.

“She had a lot of family in the stands,” Starkey said, “and it was nice to see both her and Mikala do well.”

The coach said Tyler has had a “really nice progression through her freshman year.”

“There are always going to be ups and downs, but she’s done a nice job of playing through that and continuing to get better,” Starkey said.

Tyler is fourth on the KSU roster in scoring, averaging 9.1 points in 15 minutes a game.

Grad student guard Abby Ogle scored just two points but made a big contribution to the victory with five assists and four steals.

“She means a lot to us,” Starkey said. “She hadn’t played a lot (before this season) because she’s battled injuries. But her focus coming into this last year has been good. The energy that she provides on the bench and on the court has been really good. She’s turned into one of our best leaders.”

While Ogle was on the floor, Kent State outscored CMU by 23 points, the highest of any KSU player.

Kent State trailed 9-1 and 11-3 before the Flashes ran off 14 straight points in the first quarter. In the second half, Central cut Kent State’s lead to four after first three minutes, but the Flashes quickly pushed the lead back to 13. They outscored the Chippewas 22-7 in the fourth quarter.

“Other than the first three minutes of both halves, we were phenomenal defensively,” Starkey said. “We outrebounded the top team in the league by five on the road, and we only had seven turnovers in the whole game.”

Sophomore Dionna Gray started at point guard for the second game in a row and scored eight points, had three assists and had four rebounds. Gray was backed up by junior Elena Maier, who had two points and one assist. Gray and Maier have had to play substantially more after an apparent season-ending knee injury to Corynne Hauser, who started the first 19 games of the season.

Jenna Batsch led the Flashes with 17 points despite sitting out 20 minutes with foul trouble. Katie Shumate had 12 points and six rebounds.

NEXT: At Ohio at 7 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN+.

The Bobcats led first-place Ball State by as many as 15 points in the first half, but the Cardinals rallied in a big way in the second and won 75-60. Ohio is 4-8 in the MAC and in a three-way tie for eighth place. The top eight teams in the conference make the league tournament in March.

Kent State beat the Bobcats 92-63 in Kent in January.

Box score

Bridget Dunn had nine points on three 3-point baskets. One was the 100th of her Kent State career. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

Kent State led Old Dominion by 10 points with less than two minutes left in the third quarter but saw that lead slip away in the fourth to lose 82-76.

ODU outscored Kent State 31-19 in the fourth quarter, outshooting the Flashes 53% to 38% and outrebounding KSU 13-5. The Monarchs also made 12 free throws in the quarter to Kent’s five, though most of the shots came after KSU fouled to try to get the ball back.

Old Dominion is now 17-6 on the season; Kent State is 14-7.

“The game got more physical in the fourth quarter,” Kent State coach Todd Starkey said. “We have to be able to adjust to that.

“Their coaches were yelling at them, ‘Nothing soft, nothing soft, be physical, go hard.’ And that’s what they did.

“They also got a lot of crucial offensive rebounds. There were three that got them extra possessions. That just takes the wind out of your sails. You’re playing defense that long, get a stop, then they get a rebound and a kick-out 3. That’s tough to bounce back from.”

Also a struggle for the Flashes was playing without starting point Corynne Hauser, who is likely out for the season after injuring a knee in KSU’s victory over Western Michigan on Wednesday. While Starkey praised the play of Dionna Gray and Elena Maier, who replaced Hauser, he acknowledged her absence contributed to a lopsided points-off-turnovers statistic. Old Dominion scored 23 points off 18 Kent turnovers. Kent scored 12 off of 14 ODU turnovers.

“Your best ball control point guard — one of the best in the conference at assist-to-turnover ratio — is out,” Starkey said. “You’re asking players that haven’t played major minutes to handle the basketball more.”

Turning people over is what Old Dominion does. The Monarchs rank 27th in the country in steals per game. They had 10, just short of their average, against Kent State.

ODU leads the Sun Belt in points allowed per game at 58, but Kent State scored 18 above that average. Similarly, Kent State is second in the MAC defensively, allowing 61 points a game. Old Dominion scored 21 above that.

Gray, a former West Virginia high school player of the year, made her first college start and had 10 points, three assists and one turnover. Maier had averaged just six minutes a game in two seasons, mostly in mop-up action after contests were decided. She didn’t score but had three assists and no turnovers.

Kent’s turnovers came from its top scorers — Jenna Batsch, who had five, and Katie Shumate, who had four. Both were swarmed by ODU’s quick guards as they tried to make things happen.

Shumate led all scorers with 26 points and had 12 rebounds for her fourth double-double and fourth 20-point game of the season.

“She’s playing with kind of a relentless passion right now,” Starkey said. “She’s in her fifth year and sees it as the stretch run. She was playing like this the last four or five weeks of last year, and I think she is back to that or even exceeding it.”

Shumate is now eighth all-time for Kent State in points (1,671) and rebounds (748).

Batsch had 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting overall and 3-of-7 from 3-point distance.

Numbers:

• Kent State made 46.6% of its shots, Old Dominion 45%.
• The Flashes outrebounded the Monarchs 32-31.
• ODU had the advantage over Kent State in second-chance points (14-5) and points from fast breaks (24-14).

The game matched the third-place teams in the Mid-American Conference and the Sun Belt Conference as part of the first MAC-SBC Challenge. MAC teams won six of 11 games Saturday, all of which were played on MAC home courts. First-place Ball State plays first-place James Madison on Sunday. In the first round of the Challenge, Sun Belt teams won 9-of-12, all on Sun Belt courts.

The view from Old Dominion

Coach Delisha Milton-Jones, quoted on the team’s website:

“Going into the fourth, we pushed the tempo more offensively to speed up the game and play pressure physically. Once that happened, we were able to find the rhythm that fit our style of play.”

NEXT: At Central Michigan next Saturday,

The Flashes have a bye week and play at Central Michigan at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN+. Central, which lost to Louisiana 54-51 Saturday, is 3-8 and in 11th place in the MAC and 5-16 overall. The Chippewas have been riddled with injuries and had to forfeit their game at Kent State last week because they didn’t have the seven active players required by NCAA rules.

Box score

Jenna Batsch scored a career-high 25 points and equaled career highs in blocked shots (3) and 3-point baskets (four). (Photo from Kent State Athletics.)

Kent State got a career-high 25 points from Jenna Batsch and good performances from two young post players as it beat Western Michigan 70-57 Wednesday at the M.A.C. Center.

The win leaves the Flashes in third place in the MId-American Conference with a 9-2 record (14-6 overall). First-place Ball State lost its first league game, 76-71 in overtime at Northern Illinois, and fell into a first-place tie with Toledo at 10-1. Toledo beat Central MIchigan 93-68.

Western Michigan is 4-6 in the MAC, tied for sixth in the MAC, and 9-11 overall. The Broncos had won four of their last five games going into its matchup with Kent State.

Batsch played one of her best games with 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting and 4-of-7 three-point shots. The four 3-pointrts equaled her career high, as did her three blocked shots.

“Our last game (a loss to Ball State last week) was a really hard one for me,” Batsch said. “So I wanted to come into this game really aggressive and attacking from the start.”

“She carried us in scoring when we weren’t getting much done,” coach Todd Starkey said. “Obviously her talent has been on showcase this year, and it’s good to see her confidence continue to grow. Everybody on the team knew she had a 25-point game in her.”

Backup post player Tatiana Thomas said watching Batsch achieve was “over the top.”

“I’m glad she’s on my team, and I don’t have to play against her,” she said.

Thomas, a 5-10 sophomore from Bolingbrook, Illinois, played a career-high 24 minutes, scored eight points, grabbed five rebounds and blocked two shots.

“Tatiana played a really good defensive game and did some nice things for us offensively,” Starkey said. “It’s a nice luxury to have somebody who can play and literally guard all five positions. Her versatility allows us to make adjustments in games like this.”

Thomas combined with freshman post Janae Tyler to score 18 points and produce 10 rebounds. Both played extended minutes after an ankle injury two weeks ago to starting forward Mikala Morris. Thomas and Tyler’s performance Wednesday was statistically almost identical to what Morris and Tyler were doing before Morris’s injury.

Katie Shumate, Kent’s leading scorer, had just five points but grabbed eight rebounds, had four assists and made four steals.

“She’s not a stat-watcher,” Starkey said. “If she was more selfish or more self-focused, she could have averaged 15 or 20 points in any given season here.” (She’s averaged about 12 in every season and 14 this year.)

“But this is the type of game that she shows who she is” the coach continued. “They’re taking (her scoring chances) away and she has a game like this and does a lot of the little things. That’s a sign of maturity. She’s been here for five years. We have a lot of trust in her to be able to figure out ways to win.”

Shumate and Batsch led a defense that held Western guard Kaitlyn Zarycki, the MAC’s second-leading scorer, to eight points on 3-of-12 shooting. She also committed eight turnovers.

“Our team defense took away her opportunities to score — her driving lanes and good looks at the basket,” Starkey said.

KSU point guard Corynne Hauser scored 13 points and had three 3-point baskets. But she went down with a leg injury in the fourth quarter, lying on the floor in pain before being helped to the bench. Hauser has fought knee problems for most of the last month and had surgery on her knee last summer. Starkey didn’t know yet how serious this injury was.

NEXT: Old Dominion in the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge at 1 p.m. Saturday at the M.A.C.C.

In the challenge, each MAC team plays two Sun Belt teams. Kent State beat Louisiana-Lafayette 64-55 on the road in the season opener. Louisiana-Lafayette is currently 9-12.

This Saturday’s games are all home games for the MAC and pit comparable teams against each other. Kent State and Old Dominion, for example, each rank third in their conference in the NET, a ranking system used by the NCAA to help determine tournament eligibility and seedings. KSU currently ranks 111th of 360 dteams in Division I; Old Dominion (16-6) ranks 124th.

A win for either team would likely move them up five to 10 spots, which could make a difference about, for example, a WNIT bid.

The game will match two of the best defensive teams of their conferences. ODU allows just 58 points a game and ranks 27th natioinally in steals per game and 32nd nationally in 3-point percentage defense (27.0%).

Kent State allows 60.5 points a game, second in the MAC. Opponents make 29.0% of their 3-pointers.

Kent State has stronger offensive statistics — 72.3 points per game to ODU’s 62.5 and a 42.2 shooting percentage to Old Dominion’s 36.9%.

Both teams rely on balanced scoring, with neither having a player averaging more than 14 points a game.

The game is on ESPN+.

After Saturday’s game, Kent State has a bye week and plays at Central MIchigan on Saturday, Feb. 17.

Kent State’s game Saturday (Feb. 3) has been canceled because its scheduled opponent, Central Michigan, doesn’t have enough healthy players.

CMU played last Saturday’s game with Miami with seven players; one was injured. NCAA rules say a team has to have seven to play. (Central beat Miami 64-59 despite being shorthanded.)

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Flashes fall to first-place Ball State 57-46

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Mid-American Conference rules say that if a team can’t play, it forfeits the game. So Kent is in third place in the conference with an 8-2 record, a game-and-a-half behind first-place Ball State and a half game behind Toledo. Both of those teams play tomorrow. Somewhat strangely, the NCAA does not count a missed game as a forfeit. So Kent’s overall record remains at 13-6, as far as I can tell.

Here’s an explanation of how Central Michigan got down to six players from “northcoastrocket,” a mainstay of the main MAC bulletin board:

“CMU went into the year with only 12 players, but two of those fell off the roster before play even started. They decided to roll with 10. Fairly early in the year they lost two to serious injuries. They added a volleyball walk-on to get back up to 9, but in recent weeks lost a couple more to injuries of unknown seriousness. Played with seven against Miami, but another player got hurt during that game, leaving six. NCAA rules say you have to dress at least seven.

“CMU is not the only team to go through this so far this year. For example, TCU started with 14 players but had to forfeit two games after losing eight to injury. They recently added four walk-ons to the team so that they could continue playing games.”