The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

The women's basketball team starts an expanded 12-hour-per-week preseason schedule today. That's four extra hours than in previous years. The NCAA added the time because of missed spring summer practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full practices start Oct. 10; the first game could be Thanksgiving weekend.

But coach Todd Starkey is still revamping the schedule after the NCAA's decision last week to delay the start of the season. He said the team may have fewer than half a dozen non-conference games.

Two opponents have already dropped games. Games before Thanksgiving will be rescheduled or canceled. The MAC has gone to 20-game schedule (from 18), and NCAA has cut maximum number of games by three.

Story, which includes how players and coaches coped with five months apart, is on the blog at http://wbbFlashes.com.

Updates from the women's team:

1. Starkey thinks he has four non-conference games set and is looking for a fifth. But no announcement on dates and opponents yet.

2. Katie Shumate, the team's second-leading scorer and rebounder last season, is out indefinitely after knee surgery. She may not play at all this year. She's the third starting guard from last year who's no longer available. Megan Carter graduated and Asiah Dingle transferred.

3. The team has added a 6-3 transfer from Penn State out of Pickerington Central, a mid-Ohio power. She's Bexley Wallace, who was ranked the No. 91 prospect in the nation in the Class of 2018. She won't be eligible until fall 2021. Neither her high school nor Penn State statistics are all that great, but she had a lot of Power Five offers. She'll be KSU's second Big Ten transfer in two years. 6-4 Linsey Marchese from Indiana is eligible this season and should be one of the team's best players.

4. Alexa Golden, who just graduated in May 2019, has been named an assistant coach. She became a graduate assistant after graduation, was promoted to director of basketball operations when Alison Seberger left for an assistant job at North Alabama and became an assistant after Morgan Toles was hired at Florida State, her alma mater.

5. The team has two new verbal commits from the Class of 2021. Both are under-the-radar types. Lexy Linton is a 5-9 guard from Pennsylvania. No big post-season honors. On video, she's very quick and blocks a lot of shots. (Not many players emphasize that in their videos.) She averaged almost 15 points a game her sophomore and junior seasons. Reminds me some of Alexa Golden.

Jenna Batsch, a 6-foot shooting guard from Loveland, Ohio. She averaged 11 points a game and shot 48 percent from the field. Her video shows strong drives to the basket and, again, good defense. She was third-team all-district.

Their first recruit was 6-3 post Bridget Dunn of Indiana. She averaged 12.3 points and 9.9 rebounds as a junior and made the state basketball coaches association’s 15-member all-junior team in 2020.

Except for Dunn, the recruits look less blue chip at this point than the last two classes, which each had three all-staters. Starkey went after some big-time recruits, was in the finals for all but missed -- two all-state guards from Texas, an all-state guard from Michigan and one of the best point guards in Ohio. COVID, which has prevented any off-campus recruiting and visits to campus by recruits, has made recruiting a lot more complicated. The restrictions especially seemed to hurt KSU on one of the Texas guards, who went to Abilene Christian, Southland Conference champion last year.

Lots more detail is on the blog at https://wbbFlashes.com. (The blog also has a different look; I had to switch templates when I switched servers.)

Not the best post to begin the season. Our point guard transfers, our best player might be out for the season, we lose an assistant coach and our recruits (except for one) are ho hum. Well I guess it’s still 2020 so too much can’t be expected.

The women have added their final 2021 recruit. She's Elena Maier, a 5-9 guard from outside Madison, Wisconsin.

She averaged 14.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.5 steals and shot 52% from the field on a team that went 19-6. In her sophomore year, she averaged 12.9 points a game. Her highlights show a player who can score from many different spots on the floor. Maier’s shooting percentage improved almost 11 points between her sophomore and junior years.

She's very much along the lines of the last two 2021 KSU recruits. She had a solid but not spectacular junior year. She was all-conference but not even all-state honorable mention. They might grow into elite players their senior year. They could be role players at best when they get to Kent. Larissa Lurken was only honorable mention all-Minnesota in high school. But coach Todd Starkey's first recruiting class was put together very late and was pretty much a bust. Three left the team; the last survivor is Monique Smith, who saw minutes as a backup forward last year.

But his last three classes have had at least two first-team all-staters.

Full story is at https://wbbFlashes.com.

The women's team has suspended practices because of COVID-19 issues.

That's about all we know right now.

Allen Moff of the Record-Courier reported it this afternoon. All he was able to get was a two-sentence email from Eric Mansfield, the top Kent State public relations person. (That's for the university, not the athletic department.)

Coaches have been told to refer all COVID questions to Mansfield. The football team clearly has had players miss games because of the virus, but the word is never mentioned at press conferences, on the team's website or on team broadcasts.

We don't know whether any member of the women's team actually has COVID. Other teams on campus have had to shut down practice because contact tracing had shown players could have been exposed to it.

Though the team has not announced its non-conference schedule, it was widely known that its first game was to be at Northern Kentucky the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

That's very much in doubt. A "pause," as the school is causing it, can last two weeks.

Here's link to the Record-Courier story.

FLASHES PICKED SIXTH IN MAC

MAC coaches picked the Flashes to finish sixth in the league this season. (There are no divisions this year.) KSU probably would have been in the top four before Asiah Dingle transferred and Katie Shumate had knee surgery and is out indefinitely. Ahead of the Flashes were (in order) Central Michigan, Ohio, Ball State, Buffalo and Eastern Michigan.

No Kent State players were on the preseason all-MAC teams.

NO FANS AT GAMES THIS WINTER

Kent State also announced Thursday that because of COVID, fans wouldn't be allowed at any basketball games or other winter sports events. That includes families of players, the band, cheerleaders and the dance team.


The MAC is having a 12-coach Zoom call Friday, and we'll have a report afterward.

In the meantime, you can find more detail on the practice suspension, the preseason MAC predictions and winter attendance on the blog at https://wbbFlashes.com.

A note from the Golden Flashes Club Friday said the women's home opener would be against No. 19 DePaul on Wednesday, Dec. 9.

That's COVID-19 permitting, of course.

Women's practice was suspended this week because of COVID-related issues. (Details weren't released, but my best guesses are in a new blog post at https://wbbFlashes.com.)

Such suspensions usually last 14 days. That would mean practice could start again about Dec. 3, which should allow enough time to prepare for DePaul.

But the COVID "pauses," as colleges like to call them, likely will mean cancellation of the season opener at Northern Kentucky Nov. 28. (The game was never officially announced but was general knowledge around followers of the team.)

Lots of teams are in the same boat. Wright State just announced the cancellation of its first two games for COVID reasons.

Coach Todd Starkey also said Friday that it's possible that Penn State transfer Bexley Wallace could get a waiver to be eligible this season. The NCAA has been handing out dozens of waivers in the last few weeks, and coaches have been lobbying to allow all transfers to play this season. They reason that they need as many players available as possible in the pandemic in case COVID and injuries deplete rosters. Several MAC coaches in a Zoom press conference Friday said they had been forced to practice with fewer than 10 players at times.

It's also likely that the NCAA will approve in January a measure allowing players to transfer once without having to sit out a year.

Wallace was a top 100 recruit out of Pickerington Central High School. She played sparingly at Penn State but could flourish in the MAC.

The women have returned to very limited practice after a pause because of COVID-19 problems. For now, one player at a time is working with one coach. Some players are still in quarantine.

Assuming no further COVID problems, the team will ramp up from there.

The Flashes' new opening game looks like it's going to be a MAC home game against Ohio on Saturday, Dec. 5. It would be the first time in school history KSU has ever opened with a conference game.

But the schedule is still very much in flux, and coach Todd Starkey said Wednesday that he might try to schedule a game early next week.

Starkey said the team's non-conference schedule has "literally changed 15 times" in the last month and still isn't complete.

The Ohio game was originally scheduled in February. But the MAC moved it earlier to leave a spot in case a league game needed to be rescheduled.

KSU's game at Toledo has been rescheduled to Dec. 13 from Dec. 30, a move designed to give players a chance to go home for Christmas.

More than 190 teams (out of about 350), including Kent State, have had their early games disrupted by COVID. The Flashes had planned to open at Northern Kentucky this Sunday.

Detailed story is on the blog at https://wbbFlashes.com.

Just curious, but how does moving a game 12 days before Christmas to 5 days after Christmas give the players a better opportunity to go home for Christmas? I’d think if they had already played the game and didn’t have to be back right after Christmas to play it, they’d have a better time frame to go home. Just seems odd. No big deal to me either way.

Ohio beat top 25 Notre Dame today. ND was ranked 22 so they probably aren’t as good as usual but still a nice win for a MAC school.

I saw the end of the game. Ohio clearly was the best team in the last two minutes.

Ohio also beat Liberty, which was picked second in the Atlantic Sun, 76-72 on Wednesday.

(11-27-2020 07:36 AM)axeme Wrote:  Just curious, but how does moving a game 12 days before Christmas to 5 days after Christmas give the players a better opportunity to go home for Christmas? I’d think if they had already played the game and didn’t have to be back right after Christmas to play it, they’d have a better time frame to go home. Just seems odd. No big deal to me either way.

You may have read it backwards (or I wrote it badly). The Toledo game was originally scheduled for Dec. 30. It's now Dec. 13.

That way the team can go home for Christmas and get back in time to start practicing for their Jan. 2 game at Eastern Michigan.

(11-27-2020 09:02 PM)cschierh Wrote:  

(11-27-2020 07:36 AM)axeme Wrote:  Just curious, but how does moving a game 12 days before Christmas to 5 days after Christmas give the players a better opportunity to go home for Christmas? I’d think if they had already played the game and didn’t have to be back right after Christmas to play it, they’d have a better time frame to go home. Just seems odd. No big deal to me either way.

You may have read it backwards (or I wrote it badly). The Toledo game was originally scheduled for Dec. 30. It's now Dec. 13.

That way the team can go home for Christmas and get back in time to start practicing for their Jan. 2 game at Eastern Michigan.

It was far too early in the morning for me to do anything clearly. I obviously (now) misread it.

Women will open at noon Wednesday at No. 19 Ohio State.

Game was just announced Monday.

Flashes will have practiced three times after returning from COVID pause.

Game is on BTN+ paid streaminng.

Story is on the blog at Https://wbbFlashes.com.

It's confirmed that the women's noon Wednesday game at Ohio State will be streamed on BTN+, the Big Ten's paid streaming service. Link is https://btnplus.com/game/kent-st-at-ohio...12022020….

Dave Wilson is announcing the game on Tune-In Radio. Here's that link: https://tunein.com/radio/Kent-State-Bask...-s308043/.

Updated preview is at https://wbbFlashes.com.

Ohio State destroyed the women's team 103-47 in the season opener.

The Buckeyes started the game on a 26-0 run as Flashes missed their first 15 shots.

Things got a little better in the second half; KSU scored more than double the 14 points they had in the first half.

The Flashes were clearly outmatched. Ohio State is ranked No. 19 in the country and has five starters back from a team that was 21-12.

The Flashes also had just three days to prepare for the game after not being able to practice for 10 days because of COVID-19. Ohio State had missed no practices in the preseason and already had played one game.

Best KSU statistics from the game were in rebounding, where the Flashes lost only 44-41. Ohio State had outrebounded Duquesne 52-37 in its opening win.

Nila Blackford had nine points to lead Kent. Mariah Modkins had eight. Clare Kelly had seven rebounds off the bench.

One piece of good news: sophomore guard Katie Shumate, probably the team's best returning player, started and played 15 minutes. Shumate had off-season knee surgery, and at one point, it was unclear whether she would play at all this season. She looked pretty good. She didn't shoot well, but nobody did for Kent.

Full story is on the blog at https://wbbFlashes.com.

Womens game against OU postponed due to Covid outbreak

Thanks for posting here.

I have story on the blog but forgot to do it here. Announcement came from the MAC and didn’t mention COVID (I’m sure it was).

It said game would be rescheduled.

Ohio’s Saturday home football game against Buffalo also was canceled for COVID.

There’s a little more info at https://sbbFlashes.

Another instant game for the women:

They'll play at St. Francis of Pennsylvania) at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Game appeared on schedule Monday.

Alcorn State canceled Tuesday game on St. Francis. KSU's game with Ohio last Saturday was postponed.

Such is college basketball in a pandemic.

It's a much more reasonable game for the Flashes. St. Francis of 0-4 with losses to Penn State, Michigan State, Duquesne and La Salle. They're traditionally one of the top teams on the Northeastern Conference, which is usually one of the lowest-ranked Division I leagues.

Kent State has had a full week of practice as opposed to the three days it had for Ohio State. (I spent some time with the record book, and it looks as if 103-47 was the second-worst defeat in KSU women's history. The worst was 98-38 vs. Pittsburgh in 1976, Kent's second year of scholarship basketball.

And St. Francis nickname is Red Flash. So it's Golden Flashes vs. Red Flash.

Game preview is on the blog at https://wbbFlashes.com.

The Ohio @ Kent State game has been rescheduled for Friday 12/11 at 2 PM

https://getsomemaction.com/news/2020/12/...duled.aspx

Ohio game means Flashes play three games in five days this week.

They play at 5 p.m. Wednesday at St. Francis (PA), against Ohio at 2 p.m. Friday at the M.A.C.C., and at Toledo at 2 p.m. Sunday. Because of COVID-19, no fans are allowed at any of the games. All will be streamed, with links on the team website.

Ohio game was originally scheduled for last Saturday but was postponed, apparently because of COVID problems at Ohio.