History
Started in 1913, the men's basketball team is Kent State's oldest collegiate team, started just three years after the school was established in 1910 as the Kent State Normal School and just one year after the first classes were held in 1912. They played their first game against Kent High School. The team played in what is now Cartwright Hall, which opened in 1914, until Wills Gymnasium opened in 1923. In 1950, the team moved to their current home, known originally as the Men's Physical Education Building, later to be known as Memorial Gym (1956–1992) and currently as the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center. The next year, 1951, saw Kent State join the Mid-American Conference.
The team existed in relative anonymity for most of its existence. They made their first appearance in the MAC Tournament Championship game (which began in 1980) in 1984, losing a close 42-40 game. They would make the title game again in 1987 and 1989, losing both 64-63 and 67-65 respectively. The Flashes made their first post-season appearance in the 1985 National Invitation Tournament, losing in the first round. They returned to the NIT in 1989 and 1990, losing in the first round both times.
Read more about this topic: Kent State Golden Flashes Men's Basketball
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)