Junior forward Jenna Batsch ranks 13th in the MAC in scoring and second for Kent State with an 11.7 per game average. (Photo by Scott Galvin for Kent State Athletics.)

There’s plenty of history between Kent State and Toledo. The teams meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the M.A.C. Center and on ESPN+ in an early-season battle between teams that are undefeated in the Mid-American Conference.

• Toledo swept three games from the Flashes last season, including a 68-58 win in the MAC Tournament semifinals that knocked KSU out of the tournament.
• The Rockets also swept Kent State in 2021-22.
• Before that, Kent State had won six of seven games, four of them on UT’s home floor. The Flashes’ 80-76 overtime win in 2018 in Toledo knocked the Rockets out of the league tournament.
• In coach Todd Starkey’s first season in 2016-17, the Flashes were picked last in the MAC and finished third. But Toledo beat them in the tournament quarterfinals 67-63.
• The two teams met in the tournament finals seven times in 10 years between 1992 and 2001. Toledo won five times, and KSU twice.

This year, Rockets and Kent State each have 4-0 MAC records and are tied with Ball State for first place in the league.

Toledo comes into the game as defending MAC champions and preseason favorites to win again. The Rockets are 11-3 and had the league’s marquee non-conference victory, a 69-46 win over then-No. 25 Michigan in December. The Rockets have won five games in a row.

Kent State (10-4) comes into the game on a six-game winning streak.

“We’ve been on the losing side recently (against Toledo), and I think that’s motivating for our team,” Starkey said. “But at the same time, just because it’s motivating doesn’t mean you’re going to get the win. You have to play better than the other team, and Toledo’s a formidable opponent.” 

Toledo has all five starters back from their championship team. They’ve been winning without Quinesha Lockett, last season’s MAC player of the year. She suffered a knee sprain in December, but it’s close to the time expected for her return. Her status for Saturday’s game is unclear.

“We’re preparing as if she’s playing,” Starkey said.

In Lockett’s absence, fifth-year point guard Sophia Ward leads the Rockets with a 14.8 per game average.

The teams dominate MAC statistics, especially on defense. Toledo ranks first in points allowed at 57.3; KSU is second at 58.4. The Flashes rank first in field-goal defense, allowing opponents to make 35.7% of their shots. Toledo is tied for second at 37.4%.

Kent State leads the MAC in scoring at 74.0 points per game. Toledo is third at 67.9.

The

What are Kent State’s players thinking? Asked what she was looking forward to in Saturday’s game, junior forward Jenna Batsch said:

“Revenge. It’s our turn.”

MAC standings

Standings from WarrenNolan.com, an analytics site that I use. NET is the statistical measure the NCAA uses to help rank teams and determine seeds for tournaments. It includes things like strength of schedule, scoring margin, points per possession on offense and defense, and the quality of wins and losses, based on the opponent and whether a game was home or away.

Mikala Morris muscles her way to one of her five baskets against Northern Illinois. The graduate student forward took only six shots. She also tied Bridget Dunn for a team-high six rebounds. (Photo by Scott Galvin for Kent State Athletics.)

A 16-0 run in the second quarter propelled the Kent State women to a 73-48 pounding of Northern Illinois on Sunday, setting up an early-season Mid-American Conference clash with Toledo later this week.

Both Toledo and Kent State are 4-0 and tied for first place with Ball State in the early conference season. Overall Kent State is 10-4 and has won six games in a row. Toledo is 11-3 and has won five straight, and Ball State is 14-2 and has won eight straight. BSU won at home against Bowling Green (3-1 MAC, 9-5 overall) 76-61 on Saturday.

Kent State and Toledo will play at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the M.A.C. Center. The Rockets beat KSU three times last season, including knocking them out of the MAC Tournament in the semifinals.

The Flashes made 48.4% of their shots against Northern, tying for their second-best of the season. (Best was 50% against Ohio last Saturday.) In the second quarter against NIU, they were 9-of-14 for 64.3% and made 4-of-5 three-pointers. Junior forward Bridget Dunn made three of the 3-pointers and added a layup for 11 of her 15 points.

“When we start making threes, it really puts the other team on their heels,” coach Todd Starkey said. “That’s what spurred the 25-point quarter.”

Redshirt senior guard Katie Shumate led the Flashes with 16 points, a career-high five assists, and five rebounds. Jenna Batsch also had 15 points on 7-of-14 shooting.

Box score

Abby Ogle had six steals to lead the Flashes past Miami. (File photo from Kent State website.)

Abby Ogle led a pack of thieves as the Kent State women’s basketball team routed Miami 69-38 Wednesday.

The Flashes had a total of 20 steals and Ogle six as Kent State won its third-straight game to start the Mid-Aamerican Conference season. KSU remains in a four-way tie for first place in the MAC at 3-0 with Bowling Green, Toledo and Ball State.

“Really active hands,” coach Todd Starkey said, “starting obviously with Abby. She did a really good job of picking her spots. The game set up well for her, and once she started to anticipate and read what they were doing, she was able to compound things.”

Mikala Morris had three more steals and Bridget Dunn, Corynne Hauser and Janae Tyler had two each.

Tyler led four KSU players in double figures with 16 points. She made 4-of-8 shots from the floor and 8-of-10 from the foul line. Jenna Batsch had 12, Hauser 10 and Katie Shumate 11 to go with 12 rebounds for her second-straight double-double.

Team statistics were as overhelming as you’d expect:

• Points off turnovers: Kent State 25, Miami 6.
• Points in the paint: KSU 36, Miami 14/
• Second-chance points: Kent 21, Miami 8
• Fast-break points: KSU 15, Miami 4.

Corynne Hauser has 31 assists in her last four games and has helped Kent State lead the conference team in assists per game. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

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This is the first of what I hope will be weekly analyses of the Kent State women’s basketball team. I’ve cut back individual game stories to six or eight paragraphs, emphasizing the score and brief highlights. I’ll write longer pieces like this one on weekends, wrapping up where the team stands going forward. As wbbFlashes has been from the start, it’s a mixture of news and commentary, with the emphasis being on news and opinion I can back up with facts.

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For Kent State, it’s so far, so good in Mid-American Conference play.

The Flashes were never really challenged in winning their first two games, 73-64 at Buffalo and 92-63 at home against Ohio. KSU is tied with Ball State, Toledo and Bowling Green for first place in the infant MAC season.

Overall, the team is 8-4 and has won four games.

“I really like how we’re looking right now,” point guard Corynne Hauser said after the Buffalo game. “We have a lot of really good spurts when we look like a top team in the MAC. But our consistency isn’t there yet. I think once we get to playing to our full potential for a full 40 minutes, that’s when we’ll be rolling.”

Coach Todd Starkey: “In the first two games, I think we performed well. But this team still has a lot of room for improvement, and I think we have the potential to be one of the best teams in the league.”

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Links to game stories

• Kent State 73, Buffalo 64.
• Kent State 92, Ohio 63.

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Scoring with assistance

Kent State leads the MAC in scoring by a hair over Ball State, 74.5 points per game to 74.2.

The Flashes have had assists on almost 60% of their baskets. In the last three years, the percentage was closer to 50%.

“We’re scoring at a good clip in the paint, which are high percentage shots,” Starkey said. “So we have people that can finish plays and a point guard like Corin, who is a very unselfish player and likes setting her teammates up. So it’s having a talented point guard with a lot of talented players around her.”

It’s not just Hauser passing the ball. Against Buffalo, Katie Shumate had five assists and forward Jenna Batsch three. Backup point guard Dionna Gray had four against Ohio.

Hauser is tied for second in the MAC in assists per game at 5.3 and second in assist/turnover ratio at 2.0. As a team, Kent leads the league with 16.4 assists per game.

The elusive 3-pointer

The Flashes still haven’t found their accuracy from long distance, where they are making just 29.3% of their 3-point attempts. That ranks seventh in the MAC. They did make 10-of-26 at Buffalo for 38.5%, which is KSU’s third-best of the season. Against Ohio, though, it was 9-of-34 for 26.5%.

Kent State is holding its opponents to an even worse percentage. The Flashes lead the league in 3-point defense, limiting opponents to just 26.8%.

A look down the roster

• Katie Shumate leads the Flashes in scoring at 11.8 points a game and rebounding at 6.8. “Katie’s really a player that’s focused on doing whatever it takes to win,” Starkey said. “So today (Saturday) we needed her to rebound.” Shumate had 10 rebounds to go with 10 points for the 11th double-double of her five-year career. Against Buffalo, she led KSU with 18 points and seven rebounds.
• Graduate transfer MIkala Morris and freshman Janae Tyler, who share the low post for the Flashes, continue to combine for about 17 points and eight rebounds a game. Tyler made seven of her 10 shots for the week and is making 52% of her shots for the season.
• Junior forward Jenna Batsch has started all of Kent’s 12 games and scored 137 points. In her first two years, she never started and scored a total of 125 points. Asked whether she ever expected to be one of the team’s leading scorers, she laughed. “Definitely not,” she said. “My biggest focus has been defense and rebounding. A lot of times I’m guarding the other team’s best player, so my focus is on that. I’ve tried to just let the offense come to me.”

Around the MAC

Standings from WarrenNolan.com, an analytics site that I use. NET is the statistical measure the NCAA uses to help rank teams and determine seeds for tournaments. It includes things like strength of schedule, scoring margin, points per possession on offense and defense, and the quality of wins and losses, based on the opponent and whether a game was home or away.

The top four teams start to play each other this week, when Bowling Green plays at Ball State on Saturday. On Wednesday, Jan. 17, Kent hosts Toledo, the team that knocked Kent out of the MAC Tournament last year, won the MAC title, and is predicted to win it again.

Jenna Batsch scored 16 points in the second half and led Kent State in scoring with 18. She ranks second on the team behind Katie Shumate in scoring with an 11.2 average. The black uniform Batsch is wearing was a new design for the Flashes. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

Corynne Hauser and Katie Shumate both had double-doubles as the KSU women’s basketball team overpowered Ohio on Saturday 92-63.

It was Kent State’s second victory in the opening week of Mid-American Conference play. The Flashes are tied for first place in the MAC with Ball State, Toledo and Bowling Green. Those were the four teams picked at the top of the conference in the preseason poll of league coaches.

KSU is 8-4 overall and has won four games in a row. Ohio is 4-8 overall and 1-1 in the MAC.

Kent’s margin of victory was its highest against the Bobcats since 2005. Its 92 points were the most in regulation against a Mid-American Conference opponent since 2017.

“It was a good performance overall and a great balanced effort,” coach Todd Starkey said.

Hauser, Shumate and Jenna Batsch led five Flashes in double figures. Hauser’s double-double was unusual in that she had 16 points and 10 assists. Most double-doubles are like Shumate’s Saturday performance, in which she had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Batsch had 18 points, with 16 coming in the second half. Grad student forward Mikala Morris had 13 points. Freshman Mya Babbitt had 10 points in 16 minutes, both the highest against a Division I team in her young career.

Hauser’s 10 assists were a career-high. She has had 31 total assists in the last four games and is tied for second in the MAC with 5.3 assists per game.

Kent State broke open a fairly close game with a 12-0 run late in the second quarter. Then the Flashes outscored OU 23-13 in the third period.

NEXT: At Miami at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

The Redhawks are 0-2 in the MAC and 2-10 overall. They lost to Northern Illinois (1-1 MAC, 7-6 overall) 58-48 on Saturday. Miami’s leading scorer is forward Jadyn Scott, a 6-foot-2 transfer from Cincinnati. She is averaging 12.3 points per game.

The game is on ESPN+.

Coming up next Saturday is the first game ever to be nationally televised from the M.A.C. Center. The Flashes will play Northern Illinois at 6 p.m. on the CBS Sports Network. The national exposure is part of the MAC’s television deal.

Box score

Katie Shumate scored 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had five assists to lead KSU over Buffalo. (File photo from Kent State Athletics.)

Kent State made nine 3-point baskets in the first half and went on to beat the Bulls 73-64 in its Mid-American Conference opener on Wednesday.

Buffalo went 0-for-6 on 3-pointers and managed only 20 points in the half. A big fourth quarter by the Bulls wasn’t nearly enough to catch the Flashes.

“I thought we played a really good first half, especially defensively,” coach Todd Starkey said. “I’m pleased with how we shot the ball in the half. It’s always nice to open conference play with a road win, especially up here in Buffalo.”

Until last season, Kent State hadn’t won a game in Buffalo since 2011.

Kent State is now 7-4 this season; Buffalo is 6-5.

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What Flashes need to do to win the MAC: a pre-Buffalo look at the team.

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The Flashes led 41-20 after the half, then weathered runs by Buffalo in the third and fourth quarter. The nine-point final margin was as close as the Bulls could get. Kent State led for all but 17 seconds of the game.

Two players who hadn’t had great non-conference seasons led KSU.

Katie Shumate, a preseason all-MAC choice by league coaches, scored fewer than 10 points in four non-conference games. But Wednesday she had 18 points, including three 3-pointers, seven rebounds, five assists and two steals.

Junior Bridget Dunn, who had averaged 7.2 points per game in non-conference play, posted her first double-double at Kent State with 14 points and 10 rebounds. She made a career-high four 3-point baskets in eight attempts.

Jenna Batsch scored 11 points and had three assists. Corynne Hauser had 10 points and seven assists. Overall the Flashes had 18 assists on their 25 baskets.

Freshman forward Janae Tyler had nine points and six rebounds. Grad student Abby Ogle had three steals as KSU led Buffalo 16-11 in turnovers caused.

NEXT: Saturday’s home opener with Ohio. It’s at 1 p.m. at the M.A.C. Center and is on ESPN+. Ohio (4-7) beat Akron (5-6) 67-58 at home on Wednesday.

An earlier version of this story said the Ohio game was the first of a doubleheader with the men. That is wrong. The men play at Eastern Michigan at 3:30 p.m., also on ESPN+. Apologies for the error.

Box score

Celebration: (From left) Abby Ogle, Mikala Morris, Dionna Gray, and Janae Tyler cheer on their teammates in KSU’s 109-31 rout of La Roche. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

As Kent State prepares for its Mid-American Conference opener at Buffalo on Wednesday, the Flashes are still a hard team to figure out.

Picked by league coaches to finish third in MAC, the Flashes are 6-4 after pre-conference play (4-4 against Division I teams). Playing all but one game away from home, the Flashes:

• Lost to nationally ranked Louisiana State and Florida State, playing quite competitively at times.
• Beat Missouri (9-4) of the Southeastern Conference 67-64.
• Lost to two solid mid-majors — Chattanooga (9-3) 64-54 and Duquesne (7-6) 89-82 in overtime. They’re the kind of team KSU will have to beat to win the MAC.
• Beat three below-average Division I teams, Louisiana (2-6), Xavier (1-10) and Coppin State (3-11).
• Destroyed non-Division I teams Lake Erie and La Roche by a combined score of 193-51.

So where does that leave the Flashes?

THIRD IN THE MID-AMERICAN

• Their 6-4 record ties for third in the MAC. Their NET ranking is 125th out of 360 teams in the country and is third in the MAC. The NET is a statistical measure the NCAA uses to help rank teams and determine seeds for tournaments. It includes things like game results, strength of schedule, road wins and home losses, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.
• Ball State and Toledo, the two teams ranked above Kent, had very good preseasons. KSU needs to be a better team than it is now to overtake them.
• If the Flashes play as well as they did against Missouri or in their good streaks against LSU and FSU, they’ll be major contenders for the MAC title.
• If they play as they did against Chattanooga and Duquesne, they’ll struggle to contend for a fourth seed in the league tournament in March.

“POTENTIAL TO GROW QUITE A BIT”

“I think we have some nice pieces,” coach Todd Starkey said. “This team’s a work in progress. We need to continue to get better, but we have the potential to grow quite a bit.

“A lot of people still fail to remember that we lost basically four people (forward Lindsey Thall and guards Hannah Young, Clare Kelley and Casey Santoro) who played starter minutes for us and were fourth- or fifth-year kids.

“It takes a while to kind of regroup from that. In essence, this team is still pretty young as far as minutes played together. “

Starkey replaced the losses with a transfer, an all-freshman point guard, a freshman post and a most-improved junior. Here’s a look at key players:

THE LINEUP

League coaches picked KATIE SHUMATE, a 5-11 junior guard, as a preseason first-team all-MAC player. Over KSU’s final 12 games last season, she averaged 17.7 points and 9.6 over her last 12 games.

But aside from an outstanding game against defending national champion LSU (22 points, 11 rebounds), she didn’t play at that level in the non-conference season. She averaged 11.3 points per game and scored fewer than 10 points in four games.

If she doesn’t return to last year’s form, it’s going to be hard for Kent State to compete for a title.

Grad student transfer MIKALA MORRIS and freshman JANAE TYLER give the Flashes a low-post punch they haven’t had in a number of years. Between them, they average 17.5 points and 8.5 rebounds a game. Morris, who is 6-2, was all-conference in four years she spent at Qunnipiac, a good mid-major in Connecticut. Tyler was a record-breaking all-stater her senior year in Michigan. She’s 6-foot but plays at least three inches taller.

The surprise of the season is junior JENNA BATSCH, a 6-1 wing-forward. She’s second on the team in scoring, averaging 10.3 points a game and leading the Flashes in scoring three times. She has played more minutes than anyone on the team. Her 108 points so far are approaching her productivity in her entire first two years (125 points in 47 games).

5-foot-7 CORYNNE HAUSER made the MAC all-freshman team last season and has moved into the starting point guard role. She has scored in double figures in six games and is third on the team in scoring at 10.2 points per game. Hauser is second in the MAC in assist-turnover ratio at 1.8 and tied for fourth in assists per game at 4.6. Hauser is backed up by 5-4 sophomore DIONNA GRAY, who has played at least 15 minutes in six of 10 games and at least 10 in all but one game.

Rounding out the starting lineup is 6-3 BRIDGET DUNN, the tallest player on the team. Dunn is tied for seventh in the MAC at 6.4 rebounds per game. She leads thee team in 3-point baskets with 19 and is tied with freshman MYA BABBITT for the team in 3-point percentage at 34.5%.

FOUR KEY FACTORS

SHOOTING: Against Division I competition, Kent State has made 37.8% of its shots. That’s not remotely championship caliber. Ball State, last season’s field-goal leaders, shot 46.9%. Last year, Kent State was right in the middle of the league in seventh place at 41.9% — four full points below its percentage so far this season.

KSU’s 3-point shooting is even worse. Against Division I teams, the Flashes are shooting 28.2%. Average in the MAC last season was 33%. Kent made 34.6% of its 3-pointers in 2022-23.

Kent State’s defense may make up for some of that. So far, Division I opponents are making 39.6% of their shots and 28.5% of their 3-pointers.

FREE THROWS: In Starkey’s eight years in Kent, the Flashes have been among the nation’s best at scoring from the foul line. But not in non-conference play this season. Kent State ranks seventh in free-throw attempts a game. League leaders Ball State and Buffalo average 21 trips to the line. KSU manages 16.

USING ITS DEPTH: Twelve players averaged more than eight minutes a game in non-conference play; nine averaged more than 10. Can Kent State wear down its opponents?

INSIDE PLAY: Can Morris and Tyler give the Flashes the inside punch that’s been missing for years? League champion Toledo beat Kent State twice last season by pounding the ball inside. Preventing that could go a long way toward putting the Flashes on top.

ALL ABOUT BUFFALO

Kent State’s first MAC game is at Buffalo at 6 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN+. Like Kent, Buffalo was 6-4 in non-conference games. But the Flashes have played a much tougher schedule, ranked 134th in the country to 230th for the Bulls. KSU ranks 127th in the latest NET; Buffalo ranks 228.

But the game is in Buffalo, where the Bulls are 5-1. Kent State was 2-3 in true road games. (The Flashes went 1-1 on neutral site.)

The Bulls rank in the top three in the MAC in scoring defense, field goal percentage and field goal defense, and 3-point percentage and 3-point defense.

Buffalo guard Chellia Waton, a 5-8 redshirt senior, leads the MAC in scoring at 21.1 points per game. Second among the Bulls is sophomore guard Kristen Lewis-Williams, who averages 12.8 points.

Katie Shumate (14) charges down the court, following teammate Bridget Dunn. Shumate scored a team-high 17 points. Dunn ranked second with 13 and made 3-of-3 three-point attempts. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

After splitting its first eight preseason games against Division I competition, Kent State feasted on lower-division opponents in its last two.

The Flashes set a school record for scoring margin Saturday against Division III La Roche with a 109-31 victory Saturday. Last week they beat Division II Lake Erie 84-20, allowing the fewest points in KSU history.

Kent State is 6-4 and opens Mid-American Conference play Wednesday at Buffalo. LaRoche is 8-3 and leads the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference with a 4-0 record. Lake Erie is 1-7.

Kent State scored the first 19 points of the game and held La Roche, a 1,800-student college outside Pittsburgh, to fewer than 10 points in all four quarters. The 78-point margin beat KSU’s previous high of 72 against Hiram in 2022.

Coach Todd Starkey said scheduling teams like La Roche is part of a plan.

“You have to have some level of balance in a schedule,” the coach said. And scheduling the game right before conference season, “we get the opportunity to get on the court and to play against somebody else. In these situations, it gives you the opportunity to play your whole bench.”

All 14 players on the roster played at least four minutes and scored at least three points. No one played more than 25 minutes; only two played more than 20.

The games against Lake Erie and La Roche, both at home, also somewhat balance the rest of KSU’s preseason schedule, which was rated 148th of 360 teams in the country by WarrenNolan.com, an analytics website. Kent also played only one of its first eight games at home.

Fifth-year guard Katie Shumate led the Flashes wtih 17 points. Junior forward Bridget Dunn had 13, freshman Janae Tyler 12, and graduate transfer Mikala Morris 10.

Guard Dionna Gray led KSU nine rebounds.

Point guard Corynne Hauser had a career-high nine assists as the Flashes put up 36 assists on 44 baskets. That was the team’s most assists in a game since 1990. Gray and Abby Ogle had five each and Jenna Batsch and Mya Babbitt four each. (There are games when no KSU player had more than three assists.)

Starkey also said the team was trying to work on its transition game. The result: a 30-0 advantage on fast-break points.

Box score

Jenna Batsch scored a career-high 19 points and blocked two shots in Kent State’s 89-82 loss to Duquesne Sunday.

Kent State coach Todd Starkey has played Duquesne to an absolute draw in six meetings with the Dukes.

Each team has now won three games. Neither team has won by more than seven points.

Sunday, the two teams tied after regulation and tied again after one overtime before Duquesne pulled out an 89-82 victory in double overtime.

The game was close throughout with quarter-long swings in the second (20-13 Kent) and third (25-18 Duquesne) periods.

In the fourth period, KSU scored the first nine points, then watched Duquesne tie the game at 63 with 1:06 to go. Mikala Morris put Kent back ahead with a three-point play 40 seconds later, then Duquesne’s Tess Myers tied it again with a long-range 3-point basket with 11 seconds to go.

“We put ourselves in a position to win the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter,” Starkey told KSU broadcaster Zane Richardson in his postgame interveiw. “Then we gave them too many chances at the end.”

When Richardson suggested Kent’s entire starting lineup had key moments over the end of regulation and the two overtimes, Starkey replied:

“We got to have more than moments. We have to have full games from everybody. We have different players step up at different times. But at the end of the day, you have to be good all the time in these games, especially on the road.”

The game was the Flashes’ seventh on the road in its first eight games. 

Sophomore point guard Corynne Hauser led Kent State with her first double-double of her career — 19 points and 11 reboounds. Junior forward Jenna Batsch had a career-high 19 points, andd Morris scored 11. Four other Flashes had at least seven points.

Box score

Bridget Dunn (15) had a career-high 12 rebounds and Jenna Batsch 13 points in Kent State’s 76-49 loss to Florida State Sunday. (Photo from KSU X feed.)

Kent State women’s basketball team led 14-11 after the first quarter but missed a ton of layups the rest of the game and fell to No. 15 Florida State 76-49 Sunday.

The Flashes are 4-3 on the season, with two of the losses coming to top-15 teams. Florida State is 6-2.

“It was definitely a winnable game for us,” coach Todd Starkey said. “But we have to make shots. I can’t remember a game I’ve coached where we missed so many layups. Some were contested, but we had open looks and uncontested layups we missed. You have to make those to be in the game.

“We were just off as far as finishing shots. Then I thought that we let missed shots affect us at the defensive end of the floor throughout the third and fourth quarter.”

Kent State made 10-of-30 layups and shot 24.7% overall for the game. Florida State made 16 of its 37 layups and shot 37% overall. FSU scored 17 points on fast breaks and 36 in the paint, more indication of chances near the basket.

Bridget Dunn, KSU’s 6-3 junior forward, had a career-high 12 rebounds. Her previous high had been 10, recorded early this season against Xavier. Her total of 12 is also the best among any KSU player this season.

“She’s really changed her game — changed her mindset on rebounding,” Starkey said. “I told her in the locker room that she was definitely one of the bright spots of our game— 12 rebounds against a tough, athletic Florida State team.”

The Flashes outrebounded FSU as a team 53-51. It was the first time since March 2022 that Kent State had 50 rebounds against a Division I school.

Dunn also had nine points on three 3-point baskets. Her 14 three-pointers this season are double any other player on the team.

Jenna Batsch led Kent State with 13 points while Corynne Hauser had 10. Katie Shumate had nine rebounds.

Kent State took a 14-11 lead out of the first quarter, but Florida State ended the second quarter on a 10-0 and led throughout the second half.

The game was the third of three for the Flashes against Power 5 opponents. Kent played defending national champion LSU evenly for just over a half before losing 109-79, beat Missouri 67-64 and lost to Florida State.

What do the Flashes take from those games?

“We can play with anybody when we’re playing well,” Starkey said. “We have to be more consistent. If we are, there isn’t a team on the rest of our schedule that we can’t beat.”

Florida State put five players in double figures, led by NaNiya Latson, last year’s national freshman of the year. She scored 15.

Kent State has a week off, then plays at Duquesne next Sunday.

Box score