They say there’s no place like home. For the Kent State women’s basketball program, there’s no place like the MAC Center and the rest of Kent State’s campus.
Consider there are 362 NCAA Division I women’s college basketball programs in the country. 342 of them had at least one player transfer out following the 2023-2024 season. In the Mid-American Conference alone, Akron had seven players transfer out. Ball State had three players leave, Bowling Green had two, Buffalo five, Central Michigan three, Eastern Michigan seven, Miami four, Northern Illinois three, Ohio one, Toledo four and Western Michigan had two players transfer out. That’s 41 players in the MAC and the number is well over 1,000 nationally.
Head Coach Todd Starkey and Kent State didn’t have anyone leave. One of 20 programs in the entire country to be able to say that. Basking in the glow of their first NCAA tournament in 22 years, Starkey and his staff have long created a culture of coaching the entire student athlete, being good people, and the wins have followed. Making the NCAA tournament was a cherry on top, or a “stamp of approval” as Starkey puts it.
In this day and age of the transfer portal and NIL dollars, the KSU women are a throwback of sorts.
“The retention piece has been really good for us and I think it’s one of the reasons why we had a really good season and especially finishing the season, our veterans really carried us in that tournament,” Starkey said from his office on a hot July day. “I think we try to do the best that we can at building a place that’s hard to want to leave. There’s a lot of shiny toys out there in the world of NIL and collective, everybody’s flashing their bait out there so to speak. But I think we have a good situation here. Sure, can you chase some mythical NIL collective dollars that everybody’s throwing around? The numbers, it’s like playing telephone right? The first time you hear it it’s this number then all of sudden it gets back to you and you’re like ‘oh wait a second.’ How much of those dollars are actually true or are those players actually receiving that type of thing.”
Kent State excels in the classroom as well as on the court. These women are true student-athletes. The average cumulative GPA from last season was 3.478. The publication Inside Higher Ed did a bracket of the NCAA tournament teams, based on academics. The publication’s Academic Performance Tournament had the Flashes losing to Vanderbilt in the championship game, based on academic excellence.
Starkey has had continuity with his staff, as it’s remained largely intact since his hiring.
“So I think for us it’s just valuing every player for who they are, not just as a basketball player, making every player feel like they matter and included even if they’re not getting playing time,” Starkey said. “It doesn’t mean they’re happy all the time…but we’ve been able to retain our staff as well so there’s established relationships as well and I think players really like the way we play and how we go about things.”
Retaining players impacts the program positively in so many ways. In recruiting, the retention plus a trip to the NCAA Tournament has opened up some doors for KSU with recruits they otherwise maybe wouldn’t have had. Players want to come to Kent to be developed, get their degree and win. And if they’re good enough like Katie Shumate and Abby Ogle just did, go play professionally.
Retention helps with building a fan base. Players stick around for four and five years. Fans get to know the players and the team, root for them and want to come back game after game to watch them play.
“You got young kids who are coming to the games, getting autographs after the game, they feel like they’re connected on those levels with our players and once again, that goes back to the retention piece too,” Starkey said. “Our players are staying for…Katie (Shumate) was here for five years. She got to know a lot of our fans. We’ve got seniors this year that have gotten to know our fans for four years now and that connection has a lot to do with why women’s basketball seems to be really reaching fan bases and really taking off the way that the men have kind of lost a little but of that because there’s so many players that are just transferring so quickly around the country and your fan base never gets to know a team, a roster or at the higher levels, one and dones, so I think there’s something to that relationship, player/fan relationship that really lends itself to growth in your fanbase.”
And the last part is, in this era with so many teams having to start over and plug in play from year to year, Starkey and Kent State should be right in the mix once again for a MAC Championship, and the chemistry and cohesion they should have is a big reason why. There’s no place like home, and for the KSU women’s basketball program, home is the MAC Center.