Starkey Announces Promotions on Women’s Basketball Staff
7/9/2018 11:04:00 AM | Women's Basketball
KENT, Ohio — Kent State women's basketball head coach Todd Starkey announced title enhancements for three members of his coaching staff on Friday.
Fran Recchia has been elevated to associate head coach. Assistant coach Morgan Toles has taken over as recruiting coordinator, a role previously held by Recchia. Assistant coach Mike McKee has been tasked with heading player development for the Golden Flashes. Recchia and Toles helped guide Kent State to one of biggest turnarounds in NCAA Division I women's basketball during the 2016-17 season, which included a Mid-American Conference East Division title and a WNIT postseason berth. The Flashes boasted the nation's largest RPI improvement, jumping 222 spots from the previous season.
"Fran, Morgan and Mike are three of the best young assistant coaches in the country," said Starkey. "I feel fortunate and blessed to work with such talented coaches and even better people. When you work with good people, you want to do whatever you can to keep them. The continuity on staff these past few years has allowed us to form great chemistry, and our players will continue to benefit from their great mentorship."
Recchia enters her third year on the coaching staff and mentors the team's wing players. MAC Player of the Year Larissa Lurken enjoyed a breakout senior season during Recchia's first season at Kent State, setting program records for points (752) and scoring average (23.5 ppg) while making an NCAA Division I record 280 free throws. Her work spearheading the Flashes' recruiting efforts has resulted in signing 11 student-athletes in the last two classes. Recchia has spent more than a decade at the Division I level, including five seasons as an assistant coach at Radford and three seasons as a student-athlete at Virginia Tech.
Toles also enters her third year at Kent State and mentors the team's point guards. Naddiyah Cross, who finished her career at No. 7 on the Flashes' career assists list, thrived under Toles' tutelage and became the first Kent State player to total 100 or more assists in consecutive seasons since 2010-11. Additionally, the Flashes committed the fewest turnovers per game in program history during her first season on staff. In 2017, Toles was named to the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Thirty Under 30 list, which recognizes 30 up-and-coming coaches age 30 and under at all levels of women's basketball. She played two seasons at both Florida State and Auburn and twice ranked in the top-15 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio.
McKee enters his second year on the coaching staff and 14th year overall at Kent State, which includes five years as a student-athlete and seven as a member of the men's basketball staff. During his first year on the women's side this past season, he was instrumental in the continued development of All-MAC First Team forward Jordan Korinek. Already a 1,000-point scorer through three seasons, Korinek managed to increase her scoring average by 4.5 to rank second in the MAC at 19.8 points per game. Her 634 points are the third-most scored by a Flash in program history. A celebrated three-point marksman during his playing days, McKee helped Korinek expand her shooting range, as her 21 three-pointers surpassed the total from her first three seasons combined.
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