page_title: Kent State Golden Flashes
section_title: Men's basketball
hierarchical_section_title: Kent State Golden Flashes / Sports sponsored / Men's basketball
caption_attribution_description: Interior view of the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center in Kent, Ohio.
context_page_description: The Golden Flashes are the athletic teams that represent Kent State University. The university fields 19 varsity athletic teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I level with football competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Kent State is a full member of the Mid-American Conference and has been part of the MAC East division since it was created in 1998. Official school colors are Kent State Blue and Kent State Gold. Joel Nielsen is athletic director, a position he has held since May 1, 2010.
  Athletic events were held during the very first semester at Kent State in late 1913, with several intramural teams for female students and a limited number of opportunities for male students. Early men's athletic events, in basketball and baseball, were played against local high school, church, and company teams. The first intercollegiate athletic event, a men's basketball game, was held in January 1915 and the baseball team held their first intercollegiate game later that year. A dedicated athletic field was built around 1920 and the school's first gymnasium opened in 1925.
context_section_description: The men's basketball team, which began play in 1913 and intercollegiate competition in 1914, plays in the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center and is Kent State's oldest sport and second-oldest intercollegiate team.  After decades of near anonymity, since 1998 the team has been one of the most consistent in the Mid-American Conference with a league record ten straight twenty-win seasons from the 1998–99 season through the 2007–08 season (the previous record was five straight).  Kent State was one of only eight NCAA Division I men's basketball programs in the United States to have ten consecutive seasons with twenty or more wins.  Kent State also holds the MAC record for consecutive seasons with double-digit conference wins, also for ten consecutive seasons (the previous record was eight straight), and in 2002 finished 17–1 in conference play, setting a MAC record for conference wins in a season. The Flashes amassed thirty victories in the 2001–02 season which culminated in a berth in the NCAA Elite Eight. In the tournament they defeated seventh-seeded Oklahoma State, second-seeded Alabama, and third-seeded Pitt. One of the stars on this team, power forward Antonio Gates, went on to become a superstar tight end with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers. Kent State has made 12 MAC tournament title game appearances (most in conference history) and has won six (second most), along with six regular-season MAC titles and nine MAC East titles.
  MAC East division titles: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015
  MAC overall titles: 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015
  MAC Tournament titles: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2017
  NCAA Tournament appearances: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2017
  NIT appearances: 1985, 1989, 1990, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010
caption: January 23, 2008 men's basketball game at the MAC Center.
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