KENT — The Kent State Golden Flashes found themselves teetering toward a rare losing streak.
As they did last week, the Flashes climbed out of a big hole to get back on track.
Kent State wiped out a 10-point second-half deficit and beat upset-minded Eastern Michigan 95-91 on Wednesday, Feb. 11. The win strengthened the Flashes’ hold on third place in the Mid-American Conference. They are 18-7 overall and 9-3 in the MAC.
Coach Rob Senderoff’s team has not lost back-to-back games all season. The Flashes were in danger of doing it last week when they trailed Toledo by 17 in the second half. They rallied to beat the Rockets 75-72.
Four days after losing at Southern Mississippi, Kent State overcame Eastern Michigan after trailing 63-53 with 13 minutes left.
“We’ve been able to respond to adversity, which is good,” Senderoff said. “Today we responded to in-game adversity, which is good. We’ve done that a few times, too.”
Morgan Safford’s career-high 23 points led five Kent State double-figure scorers. Delrecco Gillespie recorded his nation’s-best 20th double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Jahari Williamson also scored 15 points. Cian Medley finished with 13 points and a game-high 10 assists. Quinn Woidke also scored 13 points off the bench.
Kent State’s surge came on the heels of Eastern Michigan shooting 64.5% from the field in the first half. At one point in the second half, the Eagles had a decisive 34-12 lead in points in the paint and a 27-13 advantage in rebounds.
What was the difference the rest of the way?
“Just focusing on defense,” Williamson said. “We had to lock in on defense and get stops and rebounds. That’s where it changed.”
Woidke played a big role in the final minutes, The 6-foot freshman guard out of Cleveland St. Ignatius hit a tiebreaking 3 with 3:51 left to give the Flashes an 80-77 lead. After an Eastern Michigan 3 tied the score, Woidke made two free throws to push Kent State back in front.
“When I go in I just try to do my role,” Woidke said. “I try to get better defensively and just hit open shots on offense.”
Safford hit four straight free throws in the final 41 seconds to help the Flashes close out the Eagles. It was a turnaround from Kent State’s MAC-Sun Belt Challenge game at Southern Mississippi, where the Flashes lost a nine-point lead in the second half.
“We spent the last couple of days here working on all late-game situations, what we need to do and how to make sure we’re handling those things properly” Senderoff said. “They tried to trap, and we handled traps late in the game. We didn’t turn the ball over. Everybody knew how many timeouts we had. Everybody knew where to cut, when to cut and how to be strong with the basketball. All the things we worked on were carried over into the game.”
The bottom line? Kent State never let one defeat snowball into a losing streak.
“You always have to have a 1-0 mentality,” Woidke said. “How you respond to a loss really shows what kind of team you are. We want to bounce back from losses, not fall too far behind and not stack losses. You just always make sure you get back into the win column.”
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This article originally appeared on The Repository: Comeback win allows Kent State men’s basketball avoid first losing streak
Reporting by Mike Popovich, Canton Repository / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
