Practice started this week for the women (and the men). It will be a season of new faces; five members of the team are freshmen, two are junior college transfers. At least one and as many as three are likely to start. That's half the roster.
Coach Todd Starkey says the team, which practiced on a limited basis in summer and early fall, is ahead of where he thought it would be. The new players, he says, add better shooting, depth and athleticism to the squad that was 13-19 last season.
The roster has only two point guards — both freshmen. One is the marquee player of what may by the best recruiting class in school history. She's Asiah Dingle, the Boston Globe's high school player of the year in Massachusetts last year. The other is Mariah Modkins, a leader of Solon High School's state runner-up last season. Four-year starter Naddiyah Cross graduated, and Erin Thames, who backed up Cross as a freshman last season, has left the team.
Megan Carter, who played some point as a redshirt freshman, is pretty much a No. 2 guard now. She is KSU's top returning scorer at 10.2 points per game. Carter was the first player off the bench most of last year. Other returning starters are Alexa Golden, a three-year starter at guard, and guard Ali Poole.
Merissa Barber-Smith, the tallest player on the team at 6-4, is back after missing all last winter with a medical issue. Starkey says her loss may have cost KSU a winning record last year.
6-2 freshman Lindsey Thall (Strongsville) and transfer Sydney Brinlee (6 foot from Highland Community College in Kansas) look like leading contenders with Barber-Smith for playing time at post. Thall, Starkey says, has a three-point range up to 27 feet (the three-point line is just over 20). Brinlee was second-leading rebounder on a team that went to 35-1 last season. 5-11 Monique Smith, probably the best of last year's freshmen, is listed as a post this year; KSU tried her at wing last season.
But the wings and No. 2 guard — pretty much interchangeable positions in Starkey's system -— are deep. Golden, one of the best defensive players in the MAC, Carter and Poole return. Another marquee freshman — 5-10 Hannah Young from Brookville, Virginia, plays there. She was a four-time all-state selection (three first team) and player of the year in her division in Virginia as a junior.
Annie Pavlansky, a 6-foot freshman from Cortland, averaged 21 points a game at Lakeview High School last year.
Starkey says the talent from the newcomers will let the team play a more open, less scripted offense and more aggressive defense. And he says the team should have much better shooters than last season, when the Flashes made just 27.7 percent of their three-point shots.
Two posts on the wbbflashes.com blog:
An overview is at
http://wbbflashes.com/2018/09/29/with-ha...e-sunday/.
A position-by-position rundown is at
http://wbbflashes.com/2018/10/05/a-guide...starters/.
