VIDEO: Chuck Benson Interview
VIDEO: Nick Brenegan Interview
VIDEO: Nick Brenegan game winner
WISE, Va. – With 24 seconds left, Nick Brenegan (Greenville, S.C.) curled around a screen, snagged a pass from Bryce Weinmunson (Ponchatoula, La.) and calmly buried a 25-foot three from the top of the key to complete a comeback and get Carson-Newman (2-0) a 74-72 win over King (0-2) Sunday afternoon at the Prior Convocation Center.
Carson-Newman starts 2-0 for the first time since 2018.
"We've had this play in since the preseason," Brenegan said. "Ben Beeker set a great screen for me. I took the shot, I just happened to make it. We had an overwhelming sense of calm as we rallied."
Brenegan's triple capped a furious C-N rally. The Eagles trailed 63-53 with 6:45 to play after a Myles McCrary layup capped a 13-3 King run. However, the Eagles closed the game forcing King to miss eight of its final nine shots while outscoring the Tornado 21-9 down the stretch.
"King deserves a great deal of credit," Carson-Newman head men's basketball coach Chuck Benson said. "I knew this would be a massive test after watching them last night because of how they play. They did a great job on the defensive end and were really good offensively in their shot-making. They took and made tough twos. I thought that they were going so hard to the glass, we might have been able to exploit them in transition. Credit to our guys for repetitively making those things happen in the final five minutes of the game."
Carson-Newman was also down 10, 67-57, with 5:08 to play before Ben Beeker (Hendersonville, N.C.) sparked the rally with a bunny and a fast break dunk. Those two buckets were a part of an 8-0 run that pulled the Eagles with in two, 67-65 with 2:53 to play.
A Jack Browder (Johnson City, Tenn.) hook shot pulled the Eagles within one with 77 seconds left. C-N got a stop on the ensuing possession to set up Brenegan's heroics. The win for the Eagles marks the 34th time they have rallied from a double-digit deficit since the year 2000, but the first they've pulled it off when trailing by double-digits with under six minutes to play.
"It is a play we work on a lot," Benson said. "I've got more confidence in that guy than anyone. I knew it was a one-point game. I had the thought to ISO Jack or John in the post. I thought, why not go for it because its early. We worked on that play Friday. Guys executed it perfectly and Nick does what he does."
Brenegan led all scorers with 21 points. He was 5-of-14 from the field and 4-of-10 from three. Brenegan also connected on 7-of-8 free throws in his third-career 20-point game.
Browder followed with a 17-point night. He was 5-of-8 from the field and had eight rebounds.
John Zhao (Sevierville, Tenn.) and Beeker rounded out the Eagles' double-digit scorers with 10 apiece. Beeker had eight rebounds, one off a career high, while Zhao reset his career-high for boards with five.
After Brenegan's triple, C-N still had to withstand one more King attack. Cam George tried a step-back three from the left point with eight seconds left. He snared a tipped rebound on the left baseline and fired a 15-foot fadeaway that missed long. That miss led to a Myles McCrary tip that Weinmunson punched into the air to bleed the final moments off the clock.
"I must be honest," Benson said. "After we got the stop, Nick hugged me so tight that when he released, I almost passed out. So that would have been anticlimactic if I hadn't survived his embrace."
Carson-Newman turned it over 17 times compared to eight for the Tornado. King had a 29-4 advantage in points off turnovers.
"The thing about it is that we only had six the second half," Benson said. "Styles make fights and we aren't into turning people over. We're about limiting seconds, keeping teams off the free throw line and forcing teams into tough twos. They capitalized on our mistakes for sure."
However, the Eagles balanced that out by getting to the free-throw line 36 times and making 27 of them. The Eagles also crashed the glass against the second-best rebounding team in Conference Carolinas from 2022-23, outrebounding the Tornado 42-31 and enjoying a 15-7 edge in second chance points.
Carson-Newman shot 44.7 percent from the field for the game, but were 11-of-19 after halftime. C-N survived a 6:30 field goal drought in the second half by making 17-of-24 second-half free throws.
King shot 41.3 percent from the field and went 9-of-22 from three.
Mikhail Pocknett paced Kig with 17 points, 14 of which came after halftime. George added 14, while McCrary had 13.
Carson-Newman breaks for a week before taking on Southern Wesleyan to open the doors to Holt Fieldhouse. Tipoff Saturday is set for 2 p.m. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network begins at 1:45 with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff online at cneagles.com/live. A video stream is available through FloSports at cneagles.com/FloMBB.
