JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After 271 days Carson-Newman will hit the hardwood for the much anticipated start of the 2020-21 season Wednesday evening against Newberry with tip-off set for 5:30 p.m. from the cozy confines of Holt Fieldhouse.
The last time the Lady Eagles were on a court against an opponent was March 7 in the South Atlantic Conference Semifinals, an 81-73 loss to eventual champion Tusculum. With three games already postponed for this season, coach Mike Mincey's club opens the doors to its Mossy Creek home and league action.
"They are really excited to get back on the court and compete," Mincey said. "For me all the way down we are ready to play against somebody else. We are hoping that tomorrow when our results come back they stay in the negative and Newberry's are in the negative and we get a chance to play."
The Orange and Blue are riding an eight-game winning streak in season openers and are 30-11 all-time. Coker was the last team hang a loss on C-N to open the year doing so in 59-56 fashion on Nov. 9, 2012. In Mincey's 10-year tenure, C-N is 7-2 in SAC openers and have won three straight since falling 102-99 in overtime against Lincoln Memorial on Nov. 22, 2016.
This season is the latest the program has ever began a season. Previously, Nov. 22 was the latest into a year that C-N opened a year doing so in 1991, a SAC championships year, and 2002 losing to Campbellsville and beating Southern Indiana respectively. It is the first time a conference game is the initial outing of a season.
Carson-Newman has won 12 consecutive home openers since its last loss on Nov. 16, 2007 when North Georgia upended the Lady Eagles 81-79 to open the 2007-08 campaign. Since the start of the 2016-17 campaign, the program is 49-9 at home and have put up triple digits in four of the last six.
It has been a dominating recent stretch for the Lady Eagles against the Wolves winning each of the last nine contests and 13 of the last 15 stretching their lead in the series to 32-17. The nine-game mark is the has matched the longest streak for either side set by C-N from 2000-04. The last time Newberry (1-2, 1-2) beat Mincey's crew came in the SAC Quarterfinals on March 2, 2016, 85-74 in Eleazer Arena.
Seven of the nine wins have come by double figures including 31-point and 19-point margins a year ago. Braelyn Wykle, the team's top returning scorer, averaged 17 points per game in the two contests.
The Wolves have not won a game at Holt Fieldhouse since Jan. 25, 2014, an 83-75 win. To put that in perspective, fifth-year assistant coach Tatum Burstrom, a junior at the time, started that game and played 23 minutes.
Coach Joanna Tincher's team was tabbed for a fifth-place finish after finishing in that slot a year ago. Keli Romas, a second-team all-conference pick in 2019-20, leads a group of four returning starters. Four of the team's top five scorers are back.
The Wolves are one of three teams (Tusculum and Lincoln Memorial) in the league to play a full allotment of affairs dropping road games to LMU and Anderson before beating Limestone at home 65-52 on Saturday.
"I think it gives them some advantage," Mincey said. "Obviously this is a different time and a different season. They have had a chance to experience two road games and one home game playing during this Covid season and what it entails. They have been able to learn some things against other opponents which we are going into with a lot of returnees. It's the first game we are playing without one of our best players [from last year] in Kayla Marosites."
Historically, Newberry is significantly better at home than on the road posting a 96-34 home record over the last 10 years compared to a 54-71 road mark with only one winning year, 2018-19, away from Eleazer Arena since 2011.
On the year, Newberry is the best free-throw shooting team in league making 87 percent, 32-for-37. Otherwise the offense is middling scoring 59.3 points per game, the second-lowest average in a young campaign. It has turned the ball over 21 times twice and on 16 occasions at Anderson.
Despite Romas scoring a total of 18 points this year, Courtney Virgo has picked up the slack with a pair of games with 15-plus points. She has drilled eight three-pointers.
Defensively, the Wolves have held their opponents below 40 percent shooting in all three games with clubs scoring no more than 66 points in any of the three outings to date.
Broadcast coverage for Wednesday evening's affair starts at 5:15 p.m. with "The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off" on the Eagle Sports Network's flagship station, 106.3 The Mountain (WPFT-FM, Sevierville), and online with video and audio links on cneagles.com/live.
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