VIDEO: Chuck Benson Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – No. 24 Queens (11-3, 6-2 South Atlantic Conference) staved off a late Carson-Newman (5-9, 2-6 SAC) rally and both teams weathered an hour-long power outage in an 84-72 win for the Royals Saturday afternoon at Holt Fieldhouse.
Queens had built a 16-point lead with 10 minutes to play, 66-50, following a Jamari Smith jumper. Carson-Newman immediately mounted a rally, rattling off a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to seven 71-64 with 4:42 to play.
EJ Bush (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) and Tripp Davis (Nashville, Tenn.) capped the spurt with back-to-back layins as the Royals went 1-for-10 from the field during that stretch.
However, that's when a bolt of lightning erupted from the sky, knocking out power to three-quarters of Jefferson City, including Holt Fieldhouse.
"The outage certainly changed the tone and tenor of what the gym was like at that time," Carson-Newman head men's basketball coach Chuck Benson said. "It was a great chance for us as a staff and as a department to deal with adversity and show out student-athletes the correct way to handle a curveball."
Once the teams returned to the floor after the power returned, Queens closed the game, outscoring C-N 13-8 the rest of the way to cement the 84-72 win.
"I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Matt Pope and Shelly Laux and a small army of our support staff who did everything they could to get the gym back ready for play," Benson said. "Our apologies went out to Queens and thanks to Bart and his staff for handling the situation with class."
The loss obfuscates a fourth consecutive 20-point performance from Davis. He finished with a game-high 26 with four assists and three boards. Davis was efficient getting there. He made 6-of-12 shots and went 11-for-13 at the charity stripe.
His four consecutive 20-point showings are the first for the program since Charles Clark strung together seven consecutive in his junior season in 2016-17.
Zailan Peeler (Charlotte, N.C. ) and Bush rounded out C-N's double-digit scorers. Peeler had 14, he went 3-for-8 from deep. Bush came within a rebound of his sixth double-double with 11 points and nine boards.
All-SAC performer Daniel Carr led Queens with 18 points. He was 7-for-15 from the floor. Jermaine Patterson added in 15 off the bench, while Van Turner and Smith added in 14 and 13, respectively.
Queens outrebounded C-N 37-29. Carson-Newman entered the contest third in the country in rebounding. The Eagles 29 boards are a season low. Queens' +8 margin on the glass registers as the biggest rebounding margin C-N has given up this year. It marks just the third time this year the Eagles have been outrebounded.
The loss is Carson-Newman's fourth straight defeat. It's Carson-Newman's first four-game losing streak in a decade.
Carson-Newman returns to action Wednesday against Tusculum. Tipoff with the Pioneers is set for 7:30 p.m. Coverage will be available on the Eagle Sports Network starting 15 minutes prior to airtime with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff on The Mountain 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.
