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.)