Sun Feb 12 2012
CLEVELAND — In Kent State’s 51-49 loss to Toledo in the semifinals of the MAC women’s tournament on Friday, the Flashes could not shake the fact that they are a poor shooting team.
Good defense — and the Flashes had plenty of it — can’t win games all by itself.
Naama Shafir, the Rockets’ top scorer with 13 points, said the reason the Rockets defeated KSU was that her team had more points at the end.
No further explanation is needed.
The Flashes never quit — even when down by 12 points at 47-35 with 8:04 left.
Note that was 47 points for Toledo. That means the Rockets scored only four points the rest of the game.
In the next 21 possessions for the Flashes, the team struggled to score 12 points. The game then ended on a Kent State turnover with six seconds remaining that would have given the team a chance to tie the game.
For the game, KSU shot only 25 percent. The team averaged 40 percent for the year. Not that Toledo set the nets on fire, either, finishing at 39 percent for the game.
Kent State head coach Bob Lindsay wasn’t surprised, as he admitted, he had seen games like this before this year.
“Toledo was very good at switching defenses to keep us off balanced,” said Lindsay.
Toledo head coach Tricia Cullop was glad to advance to the finals
“I have so much respect for Kent State and their coach Bob Lindsay,” said Culllop. “They did a great job today. We had enough of a cushion to win at the end.”
On a positive note, Lindsay said that the last eight minutes of the ball game was the hardest a team of his has ever played.
I concur with that assessment.
Kent State went to a full-court press and never quit.
If the game had lasted another minute, a very exhausted group of Flashes just may have been celebrating a victory.
The Golden Flashes finished the season with a 20-10 record and there is an outside chance at playing in another tournament besides the NCAA.
KSU will find out that information on Monday, but if they are selected to the NIT or CBI, the tournament will be getting a team that fights.
And no one could ask for more than that.
•••
Contact Don Dreger at ddreger@recordpub.com
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