In her first season on the Kent State women’s basketball team, freshman guard Corynne Hauser made an impressive impact on the team.

The guard started in 25 of the 32 games the team played this season and had the sixth-highest assist/turnover ratio in the Mid-American Conference. She was named to the 2023 MAC All-Freshman Team. 

“We were certainly hopeful that she could put up good numbers as a freshman, and she did,” coach Todd Starkey said. “I think her best basketball is definitely still ahead of her, but for a freshman to come into a group that has a lot of established players and seniors, and for her to have the type of statistics that she had as a freshman – we are very pleased with that for sure.”

Hauser played basketball at Rochester High School in Pennsylvania.

“We had a pretty good conference – I played at the lowest conference,” Hauser said. “I was in single A and it goes up to six or eight, but the talent that came out of single A was pretty special.”

While in high school, Hauser averaged 25 points, six rebounds and five assists per game in the 2021 -22 season. She was also a two-time all-state selection.

“To be chosen for that twice was pretty crazy, especially with the talent that there was,” she said.

Starkey said that Hauser was being recruited by Kent State in her sophomore year.

“The first time that I had heard about her was from a friend of mine, who’s a division two coach in Pennsylvania,” he said. “He was at one of her games when she was a sophomore in high school and sent me a text message and said, ‘Hey, I got a player you really need to see.’ So that’s when I first heard about her.”

Both Starkey and Hauser said that she had many Division 1 offers in high school, with Hauser mentioning offers from the A10 conference.

“We knew that we were going to want to get involved with her recruitment pretty quickly,” Starkey said. “She’s a very talented high school player and always had a great feel for the game, had a great IQ on the floor and had the ability to make plays. So it was evident all the way back to her sophomore year for us that we were going to recruit her.”

Hauser decided on KSU over other Division 1 schools because of the playing time potential.

“One of the main reasons that I chose to come was because Starkey said he gave underclassmen the opportunity to play early,” Hauser said. “That was pretty big. He never promised playing time, but he always said, ‘If you earn it, then I’ll play you.’ So I knew that the opportunity was there – I just had to work for it.”

Hauser played 744 minutes this season, which is sixth on the team and was the highest number of any underclassman on the team.

Starkey said that Hauser’s increase in minutes early into the season was due to her “results on the court.”

“That’s really what it comes down to for playing time with us is whether you’re a freshman or a senior or somewhere in between,” Starkey said. “As a point guard, you have to show a little bit more because the ball is in your hands more than other positions on the court, so the responsibility to handle the basketball and make good decisions and learn offense, learning her teammates, all those types of things. She was making plays early, and she was able to make high-level college plays even during the summer.”

Starkey added that Hauser was not in the starting lineup immediately, but came off the bench in the beginning of the season.

“She was battling some injuries all season, but the results that she was getting early on, really proved that she needs to be on the court for more minutes fairly quickly.”

Hauser did not start in the first seven games of the season.

In those seven games, she played more than 20 minutes in four of them, including an 18 point, 1 assist, 2 rebound game in 20 minutes versus St. Bonaventure Dec. 4.

Hauser’s first start came Dec. 7 at Duquesne, where she shot 3-9 from the field and ended with seven points, four assists and five rebounds in 27 minutes of play.

While getting plenty of starting time, Hauser noticed a lot of differences from her experiences in high school basketball.

“The speed is very different and  the focuses are very different,” she said. “In high school, there are a few teams that have one good player and that was it – you didn’t have to worry about the rest of the team but now in college, everybody’s good – you have to worry about everybody. Another difference that I realized was the speed – the speed’s a lot quicker. You can’t take a play off, you just have to play it in the moment. I don’t think I’ve fully adjusted yet. I feel like there’s a lot of growth for next year with that aspect of it.”

Starkey also noticed areas of improvement early into Hauser’s season.

“She’s growing on the defensive side of the ball and offensively, she’s very talented and naturally has great instincts,” Starkey said. “Her transition to the college game has been fairly smooth, but not without obstacles and areas to improve.”

The team went 15-7 in games that Hauser started and made it to round two in the MAC tournament. She also played in the WNIT game against Syracuse.

Hauser had one of her best games of the season Jan. 11 at Miami (OH) where she had a career-high 23 points, five assists and two rebounds in 32 minutes, despite the loss.

Versus Bowling Green Feb. 11, she had another standout game, putting up 13 points, seven assists and seven rebounds in a loss to the Falcons. She had a career-high in rebounds and assists in the game.

The team finished 20-9 in the regular season and was the fourth-best team in the MAC heading into the conference championship.

In the first round of the MAC championship, Hauser finished with two points, two assists and four rebounds in 22 minutes. The Flashes won the game 75-68.

In the next round, KSU played the top-seeded Toledo Rockets. In the loss, Hauser had one point, two assists and two rebounds.

The team was able to move on to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, where they played Syracuse in the first round.

The team lost to Syracuse and was out of the tournament after the first game.

“Going into the season, we obviously want to be playing the NCAA tournament, but to get an automatic bid to keep playing in the NIT – being one of those teams was pretty big to us,” Hauser said. “We didn’t get to the NCAA tournament how we wanted to but I think just getting to the NIT tournament and being one of those teams was special enough because not everybody gets that opportunity.”

Hauser had six points, one assist and one rebound in the loss.

“It’s way different than the MAC regular season because everybody knows each other,” Hauser said. “Everybody wants to win. Everybody’s bringing their best, so we didn’t really change the way we prepped, but we had to come out with a different type of intensity to how we play.”

Hauser had the MAC All-Freshman team on her mind coming in.

“That was one of the goals I had coming into this year,” Hauser said. “There’s a ton of talent in the freshman class, so I was very happy to reach my goals, but there could have been five other people on that list as well.”

Hauser ended the season averaging 8.9 points, three assists and 2.7 rebounds per game while shooting 41.6% from the field in 23.3 minutes per game.

“We thought that she was at a minimum very capable of the All-Freshman team and she had a decent shot of being the Freshman of the Year,” Starkey said. “We had another freshman in the league that scored more than her, but Corynne’s overall statistics and the effect she had on the league for us – I thought it warranted her.”

Hauser added that she had written down a lot of her career goals ahead of the season.

“In the future, I’ll have an All-MAC player, I’ll have an All-Academic team,” she said. “And team stuff like winning the MAC. And then just from there, some individual stuff like being a point guard and having a high assist-to-turnover ratio.”

Starkey also has goals for his point guard’s career.

“I don’t think there’s any reason why we can’t have expectations if she continues on the same path of being an All-Conference and All-MAC performer,” he said. “How high that goes just depends on her, but I think she has the ability to be an All-MAC player all four years and help us reach the postseason. My expectation is that she just has steady improvement all four years and is one of the better players in the league by the time she’s a junior and senior.”

Next season, Hauser pointed out that she will need to take on a leadership role for the team “in practice, on the court, and off the court” because of graduating seniors.

The team had four graduate students and two seniors that will be leaving the team.

She still has high hopes for the team and wants to see “growth for the team” next season.

“We finished fourth overall last year, so we want to finish number one, but there’s a lot of great teams in the MAC,” she said. “We know that we have to be better for next year to actually achieve our goals – we were very close to it this year, so we need to be better in that aspect for next year.”

John Hilber is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].