It looks as if the women will finally get to play Wednesday.
Barring a last-minute COVID attack (which we had last week from Eastern Michigan), the Flashes will play at Ohio.
KSU hasn't played in three full weeks. The Flashes had five games postponed because of a COVID outbreak on their team, then had last Saturday's game postponed because of COVID problems at Eastern.
Kent State beat Ohio 84-80 back on Dec. 11. At that time, it looked like a pretty big upset. Coaches picked OU second in their preseason poll. Kent had lost its first two games.
Kent's win started a five-game winning streak that's still active. Ohio is 7-4 in the MAC and sits seventh in the league, though it's only a half game out of third. The Bobcats are 9-5 overall.
KSU leads the MAC at 4-0, but every other team has played at least nine games. Five teams have played 11. The Flashes are 5-2 overall.
Cancellation of the EMU game may end up working to Kent State's advantage. The Flashes had practiced only three days last week, twice with fewer than seven players. They would have been missing several players had they played Saturday.
Now they're at full strength with a full set of practices behind them.
Against Ohio, they'll have to contend with senior guard Cece Hooks, who is one of the hottest players in the country. She's averaged 30.4 points over her last five games and is second in Division I in scoring (26.4 points a game). Wing Erica Johnson averages 19 points a game for the Bobcats.
KSU's Nila Blackford leads the conference in rebounding (13 a game) and leads Kent State in scoring (16.4). Mariah Modkins averages 10.3 and Katie Shumate, Casey Shumate, Clare Kelly and Lindsey Thall all average between 8.5 and 9.8. (That's average in conference games only, which I consider a better indication at this time of years.)
The Flashes also announced Tuesday that their Eastern Michigan game had been rescheduled for Monday (Feb. 8). That means the Flashes will play three games next week.
I don't see any way KSU can make up all seven games they didn't play because of COVID. But they could well play three a week through the first week of March before the league tournament starts March 10. That would be quite a grind, but that's life in the time of COVID.
Full story is on the blog at
https://wbbFlashes.com.