The women’s basketball team will travel to Atlanta for the Georgia State Thanksgiving Tournament this Friday and Saturday. Kent State will play Florida A&M at 4 p.m.Friday, and the winner of the Georgia State and Georgia Southern game on Saturday.

“It wont be too much unlike against Cincinnati,” said O’Banion. “[Florida A&M] do a very good job of extending pressure. They have a lot of players that are very good off the dribble so we’re going to continue with our team defensive focus making sure that its difficult for them to get to the heart of our defense or in the house as we say and our transition defense which was pretty good last night will continue to focus on that against Florida A&M.”

Florida A&M lost to Stetson University 88-67, on Friday, in a game where A&M was outscored in the paint, 16-46.

Jasmine Grice led A&M with 19 points and six rebounds. Patrice Collie had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Kimberly Sparkman had 18 points.

The Golden Flashes fell to the Cincinnati Bearcats in their home-opener on Monday night, 59-41. Kent State was shooting 19 percent in the field in the second half.

Senior Diamon Beckford led the team in points with eight. Following Beckford, senior Leslie Schaefer, sophomore Melanee Stubbs, and freshman Rachel Mendelsohn had five points each. Schaefer led in rebounds with seven.

“We talked a great deal about valuing the basketball and taking advantage of possessions throughout the forty minutes of the game. We had executed well in spurts but obviously we needed to finish better in the paint.”

The team will be spending the holidays together at the director of basketball operations, Jessica Jackson’s family house for the Thanksgiving meal together.

“It’ll be very nice that our team will have a chance to spend a holiday together,” head coach Danielle O’Banion said. “We’ll actually eat a meal as a family in a home as opposed to a restaurant or a hotel, which will be very nice and we’ll get to the business of basketball on Friday and Saturday.”

Contact Erika Brun at [email protected].