JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – January begins for Carson-Newman as Tusculum makes the short journey from Greeneville to Mossy Creek for a 6 p.m. tip-off in South Atlantic Conference action at Holt Fieldhouse.
"With this semester we are looking at teams for what they are capable of doing rather than their record," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "Tusculum nearly knocked off Catawba on their home floor with Terri Rogers and we barely scrapped by without Rogers out there. We are trying to look at these teams for what they can do to us if we don't come ready to play."
Wednesday is the 70th all-time meeting between to the two Tennessee schools that has been dominated by Carson-Newman (7-5, 4-2) at 52-17.
Tusculum (2-8, 1-5) snapped a five-losing streak to C-N in the most recent meeting earning a 64-55 victory on Feb. 17, 2016 as the Pioneers scored the final six points of the game. The win was just the fourth for the Pioneers in 20 tries since 1996-97 at Mossy Creek as TC has won three of the last six at Holt Fieldhouse after winning one of the prior 14.
The Lady Eagles shot under 30 percent in the contest missing a total of 50 shots posting a 28.8 percent shooting clip to mark the last time C-N shot under 30 percent in a game.
"For us I don't know if you can shoot it any worse inside of our home facility," Mincey said. "With that being said it was a one possession game late and we had some opportunities to get it back tied. I felt like it was going to happen eventually but never did."
Tatum Burstrom led C-N in scoring with 14 points as she set a school record with set a school-record for three-pointers attempted in a game with 16. Shynese Whitener finished with a game-high 22 points going 12-for-12 at the free-throw line. Kasey Johnson finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
Tusculum was eighth in the preseason coaches' poll and needs to replace first-team All-SAC pick Shynese Whitener who led the conference with 18.1 points per game last year. The Pioneers do return three starters and seven of their top nine scorers led by sophomore Kasey Johnson's 11.8 points per night.
The Pioneers are playing their first game in 16 days and are 0-5 on the road this season with three of those setbacks coming by at least 20 points.
Offensively Tusculum has been one of the least efficient teams in the nation averaging the 13th fewest points per game at 55.1 while shooting 33.8 percent from the floor to rank 286th nationally. At the charity stripe they are shooting just 65 percent as a team to rank 233rd across the United States.
Rebounding has been a weakness for the club as well registering a -8.8 rebounding margin ranking 10th from the bottom in that category while averaging just 33.4 rebounds per night, 279th in Division II.
Tusculum is forcing 19.4 turnovers per game, fifth in the league, thanks to the SAC's leader in pilfers, Benedicta Makakala, who averages 3.3 per game, 10th in the nation.
After missing the first seven games of the season, forward Kasey Johnson is back and coming off of a night where she registered 25 points on 9-for-15 shooting coupled with 10 rebounds for the second straight night at Anderson.
Fans can enjoy a night of basketball for free on the Eagle Sports Network. If residents of the Lakeway region want to kick back to listen to the radio they can flip on Mountain Country 106.3 WPFT-FM. For those outside of the area, a high definition video stream and an audio option is available on cneagles.com/live beginning at 5:45 p.m. with "The Appalachian Electric Cooperative Countdown to Tip-Off".
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