It is officially March, the college basketball regular season is over, and it is tournament time. The Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament tipped off in Cleveland today.
The Kent State Women’s Basketball team entered the tournament as the fourth seed in the conference and went up against Northern Illinois (NIU), NIU came into the tournament as the fifth seed in the tournament.
The game could not have started better for the Flashes, as they went up 22-10 in the first quarter. NIU late in the second half would always come within six points of the Flashes, but Kent State would withstand the runs and ended up pulling away winning the game by a final of 75-68.
The Flashes had multiple standouts in the game, one of them Katie Shumate who finished the game with 20 points and made three threes of six attempts. Other standouts in the game were Clare Kelly and Lindsey Thall both players finishing with 16 points each in the win for the Flashes.
The standout player was on NIU, A’jah Davis, she finished the game with 26 points and 12 rebounds in the losing effort.
The Rockets played today before the Flashes, against the eighth seed in the tournament the Buffalo Bulls. The Bulls and Rockets played a close game today in the opening game of the tournament. With the game going to overtime, and Buffalo missing two potential game-winning shots in regulation and in overtime.
The Bulls shows that Toledo is not as hard to beat as some would have thought with Toledo being the one seed.
The game will tip-off at 10 a.m. on Friday in the first game of the day of the MAC tournament for both women and men who will be playing on Friday.
The next game for the Golden Flashes is Friday morning against the one seed in the women’s tournament the Toledo Rockets.