Carson-Newman has lost its last three games while giving up three of the four highest point outputs of the year including its top two in the last two contests, 87 against Catawba and 90 at Lincoln Memorial. For the majority of the season, the Lady Eagles were first or second in the league in scoring defense, but in the last three games, the scoring averaging has soared to 65.2 points per game which is seventh in the league on the year.

"We lost two of our better defenders," head coach Mike Mincey said. "We have to do a good job with our help to pinch and recover. They are going to put their head down and try to drive it. That's not something we are doing very well right now is on the ball defense. We are going to have to be more of a pack-line defense and make them pass the ball out and make them take more than about 12 threes."

Despite a slew of injuries and setbacks, the offense has not slowed down as the Lady Eagles are still first in the league in points per game by averaging 72.6 points per game this year while shooting 41 percent from the floor in the year.

"It seems like [the offense] is ever-changing," Mincey said. "We have to change it midseason because that's what we have to do. We've talked a lot about not taking as many threes and throwing it into the post. We are trying go a little more inside-out than we had."

Lenoir-Rhyne enters the weekend having lost six of its last seven games with a glaring difficulty to shoot from the outside. The Bears are 18-for-76 (24 percent) from three-point range in the six losses having made no more than four shots from beyond the arc in a game in that stretch.

"I thought we would go to L-R and just play zone the whole time," Mincey said. "Then I went back and looked at the Coker film who likes to play zone and L-R got the ball inside the zone all the time. They just aren't making baskets."

Carson-Newman earned a 57-52 victory at Holt Fieldhouse over Lenoir-Rhyne on December 10 as senior forward Whitney Kyle (Jefferson City, Tenn.) tallied her first career double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds.

The Bears were led by Jenni Gust's 20 points while holding Jazmine Charles to just 12 points on 5 of 19 shooting. Charles is averaging 17.1 points per game this season, fourth in the SAC while ranking eighth in the league with 6.9 rebounds per game.

Saturday's contest marks the 68^th meeting between the two programs with Carson-Newman holding a 42-25 lead in the all-time series.

"The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off" begins pregame coverage at 1:45 p.m. on the Eagle Sports Network's flagship station 106.3 WPFT-FM and by visiting cneagles.com/live for the audio stream.

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