VIDEO: Chuck Benson Interview
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Carson-Newman (14-9, 11-8 South Atlantic Conference) made just three of its first 20 shots to start the second half and No. 17/11 Queens (20-3, 16-3 SAC) went on a 29-8 run to turn a six-point halftime lead into a 74-50 final Saturday at Curry Arena.
"I told the team, and it's just the truth," Carson-Newman head men's basketball coach Chuck Benson said. "Since Jan. 1, 2021, this team has been elite on so many levels. Today, 13 months later, we had our first real stinker. I have to laugh a bit because I like the word stinker, but also laugh because it's really not who we are. I think we will learn from this. I know our team's character as people, I think we will have a determined bounce back when we face our next opponent"
The 24-point margin, which is the largest win for the Royals in the 22-game history of the series, obfuscated a solid defensive effort for the Eagles.
Carson-Newman limited the Royals to 35.3 percent shooting a season low. Carson-Newman also held Queens 12 points below their season average of 86 points as the league's second-leading scoring team.
However, Queens more than made up for the shooting swoon with a +16 margin on the boards, the first time C-N has been outrebounded by more than 15 since Dec. 18, 2018. Queens had a 17-4 edge on the offensive glass. The Royals outscored C-N 15-4 in second chance points.
"Shot-making is the ultimate objective," Benson said. "Neither team was very efficient, you'd better have a way to collect the misses and score more. They got 15 more shots up than us. That goes back to the offensive rebounding. We are a team that has made a much bigger deal this season about our offensive rebounding, and we saw that in our last game against Tusculum. Today it was about as one-sided as you can get. I know we have it in us, but for whatever reason, we did not today."
Carson-Newman went 7-of-29 from the field in the second half and 2-for-11 from beyond the arc. The Eagles finished the game shooting 34 percent from the field. They went 3-of-18 from three.
"We came out in the second half and couldn't find the plot on either end," Benson said. "Nothing had changed in terms of our preparation or what we were asking our guys to do. Today was one of those days where we struggled and when it got really tough, we couldn't find a way to recover."
EJ Bush (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) was the lone Eagle to post a double-digit scoring effort with 11 points. He had two in the second half. He also had eight rebounds.
Jamari Smith led all scorers with 20 points. He posted a double-double with 12 rebounds. Smith became the first opposing leading scorer to exceed his average against C-N in 2022.
Quan McCluney and BJ McClaurin added in 11 and 10, respectively.
Carson-Newman is off for a week before taking on Catawba Feb. 12. Tipoff from Holt Fieldhouse is set for 4 p.m. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network starts at 3:45 with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff on Mountain Sports 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.
