The women host Division II Clarion at 1 p.m. Saturday at the M.A.C. Center. The game is also on ESPN3.
Clarion is 2-5. It's also the school Kent State beat 92-38 in 2018. It lost at St. Bonaventure by 32 points two weeks ago. KSU beat St. Bonaventure by 11.
So it looks quite likely that the Flashes will go 8-1 on the season and equal the second-best start in school history. The best was 11-1 in 2008-09.
I spend some time on the blog looking at how fast-starting teams did inn the rest of the season. The 11-1 team went 8-9 over its remaining games.
The 1978-79 team (8-1 start) lost its next three games in a row but finished 23-8. That season was so long ago that the MAC compete in women's basketball. KSU almost entirely played other Ohio universities and colleges, including Defiance, Denision, Ohio State and Cincinnati.
The 1993-94 team (8-1 start) went 12-8 the rest of the way and finished fourth in the MAC.
What I consider the best teams in school history had mediocre starts.
The 1995-96 team went 24-7 and posted Kent's only win in the NCAA tournament. Amy Sherry, Carrie Templin and Billie Jean Smith-Goldman led that team. It started 3-3.
The 1997-98 team went 18-0 in the MAC (23-7 overall) and lost by three points at Iowa State in the NCAA. Templin, Dawn Zerman and Julie Studer led that team. It started 3-4.
The 1999-2000 team went 25-6, the best record in school history. Zerman and Studer led that team to a 15-1 MAC regular-season championship and the MAC tournament title. That team started 3-4.
The other thing of note about the Clarion game is that sophomore point guard Casey Santoro will be playing against her sister Cory, who is a freshman starter for Clarion.
More details are on the blog at
HTTP://wbbFlashes.com.