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.