Family Atmosphere Key to Flashes Sustained Success
3/10/2022 11:00:00 AM | General, Men's Basketball
By Caden Riley
Through the trials and tribulations life presents, family is what gets us through the bad days and makes the joys of good days feel that much sweeter. A family brings the best out of each other and can lean on each other when the next member has nothing left to give.
The Kent State men’s basketball team has embodied everything it means to be a family and more through the course of the 2021-22 season. Every instance the team has had their backs against the wall, they have stuck together and prevailed with flying colors.
“[Our relationships] are growing every day. I feel like we all have a family-like bond,” said standout junior guard Sincere Carry. “My teammates are like my brothers and the coaches are like our big brothers.”
Carry and his backcourt partner, junior Malique Jacobs, have been the stars of the show for the Golden Flashes down the stretch. Carry, the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Player of the Year, has been an excellent three-level scorer as he leads the team with 18.7 points per game and Jacobs has become one of the most daunted defenders in the MAC. The energy the two All-MAC Defensive Team members bring to the floor every single night has been vital to the team’s success.
The chemistry and comradery among the players and coaches has been apparent along the team’s 12-game winning streak as they have helped push each other to new heights. Kent State is one of three teams in the country to have three or more alumni on staff. Head Coach Rob Senderoff, the MAC Coach of the Year, has cultivated a family-centered culture by bringing these former players back on staff to help the program continue the tradition of excellence they experienced as student-athletes.
Assistant coaches Julian Sullinger (2005-09), Randal Holt (2009-13) and Jon Fleming (2013-17) are all former Kent State basketball players and all three have played under Senderoff. The trio of Kent State basketball alumni has helped each player along their journey of understanding what it truly means to be a member of the Golden Flash family.
“The biggest thing I’ve been able to help the younger guys with is how to handle yourself as a young man maturing and growing into adulthood,” said Holt. “I’ve been able to give them advice on things that I went through when I was in their shoes.”
Holding each other accountable and playing together as a unit has fueled the team’s perseverance and poise as they have slowly made their way near the top of the MAC. When the standard of playing Kent State basketball isn’t met, no player or coach shies away from making it known.
“[The coaches] live and die Kent State and in the beginning of the year we were not playing Kent State basketball,” said Jacobs. “We weren’t physical, we weren’t together and we just weren’t them dawgs. They emphasized that a lot when we were losing.”
Following a couple tough mid-season losses to Central Michigan and Northern Illinois, the team faced adversity. Players and coaches knew they needed to take the intensity up a notch. As one good practice rolled into another, two wins turned into three and suddenly 11 wins turned into 12. The Golden Flashes, led by Carry and Jacobs, know they are right where they are supposed to be.
“Even when we were losing, we knew that we were going to have this right here, this streak,” said Jacobs.
While the team has emphasized holding each other accountable and turning up the intensity on the court, having fun and celebrating each other on and off the court has also fueled the team’s comradery and success.
“These guys are celebrating each other’s success more than any other team that I’ve ever had,” said Senderoff. “I feel like I have never had a team that likes each other as much as these guys do.”
As the team has learned to celebrate and acknowledge each other’s hard work and success, former Kent State head coaches have also been there to celebrate Senderoff’s successes and help guide him along the journey.
“I got a text from Gary Waters congratulating us for where we’ve taken this season,” said Senderoff. “Those things don’t happen everywhere. Jim [Christian] and I talk every day, coach [Geno] Ford and I talk every day.”
Senderoff has been able to learn from the program’s past successes while inheriting and continuing to expand on the strong foundation that former head coaches Gary Waters, Stan Heath, Jim Christian and Geno Ford built before he took the helm as head coach in 2011.
Senderoff and others surrounding the program never fail to recognize Waters as the originator of the Golden Flash family culture when he was hired by emeritus Director of Athletics Laing Kennedy in 1996.
Kennedy took over as Athletics Director for the university in 1994 and served until 2010. Together, Kennedy and Waters were able to start a new chapter in the Kent State basketball history books centered around integrity and, most importantly, family.
“Gary [Waters] wanted to recruit students that were really close to their family and in particular their mom,” said Kennedy. “That helped us become a family culture.”
During the process of shifting the culture within the program, Kennedy knew he needed a coach at the top with the right points of emphasis both on and off the court. Kennedy realized that in order to attract the best student-athletes, he needed to place strong emphasis on student-athletes’ success not only on the court, but in the classroom as well.
“Looking at the academic excellence at Kent State, that was very important," said Kennedy. "Gary [Waters] knew that the accountability academically and athletically was very key.”
Waters tirelessly recruited players from all around Ohio, and the work that he and Kennedy put in to turn Kent State into a mid-major powerhouse started to show during the 1998-99 season. The Golden Flashes clinched their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance after winning their first MAC Tournament, and the success within the program has continued since. The Flashes are one of eight teams in the country without a losing season this century and have been to six NCAA Tournaments in the last 24 years.
Following Waters’ impressive stint as head coach that ended in 2001, Heath stepped in and gave Kent State a run for the ages. The 2001-02 Golden Flashes, led by Antonio Gates and Trevor Huffman, took the country by storm and guided the team to an appearance in the Elite Eight. Heath and his team finished with the best record in program history at 30-6, along with a MAC-record 21-game winning streak. It was a season that will be remembered in Kent forever.
“I remember getting a phone call from Tom Izzo," said Kennedy. "He said Stan Heath is the best assistant coach I have ever had, and he is ready for it. Winning those games with Stan [Heath] and qualifying to go on to the Eight Eight was just incredible. Some of the CBS commentators asked me if I thought that was the good old days of Kent State. I said maybe, but I would like to do this every year. It was an unbelievable time. I felt as if we were big time.”
Izzo was right about Heath. And after that one historic season with the team, Heath received substantial national recognition for his masterful run and took the head coaching position at the University of Arkansas.
But Kennedy was right too. Kent State's good old days are still happening, especially on the basketball court. The Flashes haven't had a losing record in 24 seasons in large part because, apart from Heath, the head coaches have been promoted from assistants and that family culture has been engraved in them.
Christian, an assistant on the 2001-02 team, stepped in as the Golden Flashes head coach from 2002-08 and Ford, also a former assistant, followed him from 2008-11. Both coaches built upon the success and family-oriented culture within the program. Senderoff served as an assistant coach under Christian and Ford and when it was time for him to take the head coaching job, he was more than ready.
“He has always carried himself as a leader. He is always prepared at the highest level and we have respected him to the highest level,” Sullinger said. “His prep-time and how he prepares is second-to-none.”
Since Senderoff took reins of the program in 2011, the Flashes have been consistent year-in and year-out. Senderoff has amassed six postseason appearances, won the MAC Tournament in 2017 and is the program’s all-time leader in wins. He ranks seventh in the MAC record book with his 217 wins, and he secured his seventh 20-win season which is the most in program history. He was named MAC Coach of the Year this season for the first time in his tenure.
“When you think about the Kent State experience, you immediately think about family and Coach Senderoff has done a great job prioritizing a family atmosphere within his program,” said Director of Athletics Randale L. Richmond. “It’s one of the five Core Values within our athletic department and is fully manifested on that team. They absolutely love being around each other and go out of their way to make sure everyone on the team feels connected. I have really enjoyed watching this team bond and develop both on and off the court. If you’ve watched them play, it’s evident that their strong bond has led to their success.”
Along with the family bond, another common denominator among almost all Senderoff’s teams is their aggressive play on the defensive end, and that is no different for this season’s team. The Golden Flashes’ tireless tenacity and effort on the defensive end has been a huge factor in the team’s success this year.
“We’ve really gotten better defensively over the course of the year,” said Senderoff. “We have competed at a really high level defensively. That has become our identity.”
The accolades and the regular season streak are well-deserved, but the Flashes have their eyes set on being the first team since 2016-17 to win the MAC Tournament. Fleming was on the last team to bring home the conference hardware and has been able to draw some similarities between that team and the current group.
“Playing on the 2017 team has really helped me guide them through this year,” said Fleming. “If you look back to 2017 when we made the NCAA Tournament, basically the same thing happened. We were struggling early and then ended up winning nine of our last 10.”
The Flashes have looked to the coaching staff’s past accomplishments for inspiration and motivation as they keep working toward their goals. They would not want anyone else leading them into postseason play as the entire staff is no stranger to the atmosphere that March brings.
“They tell you that [Senderoff] is someone you can trust and tell stories about when they played and won the MAC championship,” said Carry. “They’ve done things we want to do, and they push us. The expectation is high for us. We want to reach the levels that they’ve reached.”
The Golden Flashes secured the No. 2 seed in the MAC Tournament with a regular season final win over Buffalo that pushed the win streak to 12 in a row. The Flashes will begin their quest to write their names in the Kent State history books with a matchup against Miami on Thursday, March 10 at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse at approximately 4 p.m.
As the mayhem that March brings to the college basketball world has finally arrived, only one thing is on this team’s mind: play as a family.
