ASHLAND – For Ashland University women’s basketball fans, Kari (Daugherty) Pickens is a walking time machine.
Searching for the memory of when the program took off like a rocket in the 2011-12 season? She’s there.
Reminiscing about when the Eagles won 50 consecutive home games, or thinking about when they set the Division II record with a pair of perfect, 37-0 seasons? She was there, too.
Ashland, which last week reclaimed control of the nation’s No. 1 ranking in Division II, is in the midst of utter dominance yet again (17-1 overall).
Despite 12-plus years passing since Pickens first stepped foot on campus as a transfer from the University of Dayton, it still might seem in many ways like Groundhog Day.
With Pickens in their gym – first as a player, then as an assistant coach and now in her sixth season as head coach – the Eagles can’t stop winning. It has become their DNA.
But it has been the coach’s insistence on separating the off-the-court individual from the on-the-court program – something she learned from former AU head coach Sue Ramsey – that has withstood the test of time.
“One of the things I took away the most as a player was, you win a national championship and then you come back and you’re expected to still go to class the next day; the world doesn’t stop,” Pickens said after a recent practice.
“As great as it is for us to try to do what we’ve done, winning a national title is really small (in the grand scheme of things),” she said. “It has to be about so much more than just the end product of a national championship.
“Those earlier championships really taught me that and helped me keep things in perspective more as a head coach.”
Staying grounded amid all the astonishing numbers can’t be easy.
Pickens’ two seasons as an AU player resulted in a combined 70-3 record and back-to-back appearances in the national championship game (an overtime loss in 2012 was followed by a runaway title win a year later).
As an assistant coach under Robyn Fralick from 2015 through 2018, she helped guide teams that went 104-3, made back-to-back national championship games again (one win, one loss) and set a Division II record for consecutive victories at 73 – incredibly 22 more than the previous record.
Now as Ashland’s head coach since 2018-19, Pickens is 159-16 and owns two of the eight undefeated seasons in Division II history (37-0 last year and 31-0 in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign).
The Eagles’ 45-game win streak (snapped earlier this season by Ferris State) is the fourth-longest in Division II history. The Eagles’ active 35-game road win streak is a new Division II record.
“When I took over we had just come off of a 73-game winning streak,” Pickens said. “They could have easily opened up this job and gotten a ton of applicants, but I think people believed in our program and what I was going to try to continue on with.
“A ton of credit goes to Coach Ramsey for establishing a program that people wanted to be a part of. I’m just really thankful that Robyn (Fralick) believed in me enough to be able to advocate for me to take over, and even giving me a position as an assistant to begin with.”
While she’s been busy adding to all the staggering records, Pickens has become a mother of three alongside her husband, Brad.
She returned to practice last week from maternity leave while caring for new baby girl Julia, who was courtside during the Jan. 24 practice, along with siblings Elijah (5) and Chloe (2).
It isn’t a stretch to say that type of family-friendly atmosphere is rarely found at a college dynasty.
At Ashland, it’s become common-place; even the players are a family before all else.
Zoe Miller, a junior forward who averages 14.2 points per game off the bench, has led the nation in field-goal percentage at times this season. She played in all 37 games last season for AU.
A graduate of Holmes County powerhouse Hiland High School who first moved on to play at Division I Bowling Green, she didn’t find her balance until transferring to Ashland.
“When I chose to come to Ashland, I found that my identity is not just through basketball – I’m more than that,” she said. “Through Hiland and even (Bowling Green), I struggled with that a little bit, just feeling like basketball is who I am.
“When I got to Ashland, I discovered right away that I’m more than a basketball player. I just love my teammates so much. We’re like family here.”
That was the environment Pickens recalls stepping into when she came to Ashland in 2011 to play for Ramsey (367-217 in 20 seasons at AU).
Pickens wasn’t a stranger to leading a winning team – having played in three state championship games in high school at River View – but she unlocked something more as an Eagle.
It has been her bedrock as a coach: At all times, it’s the person over the player.
“There are tons of things I still do the same that we did 12 years ago,” she said. “Obviously some things have to change and evolve, but people know – they can ask current players, they can ask former players and they can ask different people who have known our program … they know what they’re going to get.
“As a coaching staff, we know what we can fall back on.”
When the AU record books are picked through decades into the future, Pickens will be tied to current fifth-year senior and star forward Annie Roshak.
The North Canton Hoover High School product could become Ashland’s all-time leader in career points and games played by season’s end.
Again, it was the perfect environment for a player to maximize her potential.
“This was the first school that really reached out to me (as a high school recruit), so I was actually committed under Fralick,” Roshak said. “But I feel like I instantly connected with (Pickens), so once I heard she was taking over, it was a no-brainer to (still come) here.
“The progress that I think I’ve made here as a basketball player but also as a person through my five years is something that I’m really, really thankful for.”
One of Roshak’s most painful basketball moments could have come as a freshman in 2020. With her averaging 10.5 points per game off the bench, AU was 31-0 and had arrived at its NCAA Midwest Regional tournament at Drury University in Springfield, Mo.
The Eagles got one practice in, headed back to their hotel, then found out in Pickens’ room that the tournament had been canceled due to the pandemic.
A potential run to another national championship instantly vanished, but somehow, Pickens helped turn that night into one of Roshak’s most cherished memories.
“She said, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a really fun night here.’ So we all went out to eat, she let us get appetizers and pop – all the things that we never get,” Roshak recalled with a laugh, “and then we went to an arcade and we went bowling.
“It was a super fun night and (the coaching staff) did a good job making it special for us.”
When Roshak and the Eagles sprinted through last season undefeated, Pickens became just the second person in history to win a college women’s basketball championship as a player, assistant coach and head coach (current LSU head coach Kim Mulkey is the only other).
The majority of Eagle fans who attend games now likely will never forget the Pickens era as a player.
She still holds the Division II record for most consecutive games with a double-double (34) and her 492 rebounds in the 2011-12 season are fifth in Division II history.
Who still has Ashland’s highest single-season point total (744) and lone triple-double? Pickens.
She might be a 33-year-old with three children, but she can still get under the basket and run her players through the wringer in practice.
Roshak thinks Pickens could beat any of them one-on-one.
“We’ve asked her to see (film of her playing days), but the most we’ve gotten is some highlights on YouTube or something,” she said. “But we know she was a baller.”
Pickens said her time playing under Ramsey showed her to never get too high or too low as a coach. She said a lot of her practice planning and structure comes from Ramsey’s school of thought.
Fralick, meanwhile, led the Eagles to back-to-back national title games in 2017 and 2018 with Pickens on staff and since has vaulted from leading Bowling Green to now Michigan State.
Pickens called her an inspirational coach and said she wasn’t one bit surprised that Fralick already heads a Big Ten program less than 10 years after getting her first head coaching job.
“One of the things that I learned from Robyn is to let your players play,” Pickens said. “I don’t try to micromanage in the game, I try not to call too many plays. I just want to let them play hard, play free.”
The echoes of excellence are not hard to hear at Ashland.
Pickens has been the common denominator.
“She has stayed here and she’s been willing to keep building onto it,” Roshak said. “I think she’ll tell you that that’s way more important than anything she did on the court.”
