The Kent State women’s basketball team was able to right itself last week with two key home victories over Duquesne and Xavier. The previous week the team had lost a couple of road games in the state of North Carolina to NC State and Elon.
Weathering the early season injury bug, and with lineups and rotations a little out of whack, the team was able to come back to the MAC Center and find some home cooking.
With the return of point guard Dionna Gray, other players are able to settle into their more natural roles, with having that pure point guard to make everyone else’s job easier and more comfortable.
Head Coach Todd Starkey was pleased with his team’s response to what was some early season adversity.
“Anytime you’re beating an A-10 team followed by a Big East win, those are big things for our conference and our program,” Starkey said following Saturday’s win. “We want to continue to build off that. I like the way our team rebounded from the losses in North Carolina. It’s decision time at that point. Are you going to turn one or two losses into more or are you going to try and turn things around and right the ship and do better. I was really pleased with the way we responded this past week to get two wins against those two teams and now it just sets the bar a little bit higher for us with what we want to try and accomplish.”
Gray averaged 15.5 points in the two wins, while senior Bridget Dunn continues to be a vocal leader of the defense, one of the best defensive rebounders in the country and a really good stretch four.
The team now heads to Puerto Rico for games on Thursday and Friday of this week with Brown on Friday and Colorado State on Friday. Starkey sees a lot of benefit in the trip.
“Tournaments are important,” he remarked. “I know some people might question why we go to those things and travel and that type of thing. First of all, it’s important for recruiting to be able to go on those experiences because most schools are trying to do that. You have to do things that are going to attract the best talent here so that’s a big piece of it. I like playing in tournaments where we’re playing back-to-back days because it simulates tournament play and we want to be prepared for MAC Tournament play where we’re playing back-to-back days so it’s not the first time, we’ve seen that. I think that paid dividends for us last year for sure.”
Kent State will take on Brown Thursday at 1:30pm eastern time and the Rams at 1:30 on Friday.
BABBITT SHINES: One player that is shooting the ball and playing with extreme confidence is sophomore guard Mya Babbitt. The sharp shooter from the state of Nebraska is coming off a career high 25 points Saturday on 4-6 shooting from distance.
After playing sparingly last year, the guard has taken the opportunity she’s earned and run with it.
Babitt is shooting a remarkable 15-32 from 3FG for 47%, while averaging 11.7 points per game in 30 minutes per game.
“Mya’s continuing to show people what she’s capable of,” Starkey said. “I don’t think it’s any big surprise to her teammates or us that she is capable of doing these things. It’s so great to see her hard work pay off and to be in position, when other teams are focusing their scouting report to take Dionna or Bridget, or other players away, that opens things up for Mya. She’s been handling the ball great; she’s been playing great defense and she’s knocking down shots now. That just makes us all the better.”