VIDEO: Chuck Benson Interview
HARROGATE, Tenn. - Down two starters and playing a third straight road game in six days, Carson-Newman (13-7, 10-6 South Atlantic Conference) struggled to find its offensive footing in a 73-57 loss to No. 16/18 Lincoln Memorial (15-3, 12-3 SAC) Wednesday night in Tex Turner Arena.
Without the services of point guard Luke Brenegan (Greenville, S.C.) and small forward Ren Dyer (Weaverville, N.C.) due to illness, Carson-Newman shot a season-low 30 percent from the field.
"Every team faces adversity," Benson said. "Luke is our Patrick Mahomes. When he can't go other guys have to step up into a role where they may not be as comfortable. We're trying to figure out what's going on with Ren and certainly want to keep him in our thoughts and prayers. We want him to get healthy so we can talk about basketball later with him.
"In spite of all that, I thought we came here and competed while getting some guys substantial action who wouldn't normally have gotten that action. We come out of here frustrated by the outcome, but taking some positive things away about ourselves."
The 57 points C-N scored are the second lowest its put up this season. Carson-Newman scored a season-low 25 points in the first half while going 10-of-32 from the field. C-N went 3-of-19 from deep on the game.
"I'm very confident in our ability to score the ball when we get good shots," Benson said. "I thought we took and missed a lot of good shots. There was a lot of rattling in and out. Those things happen. I told our team that the objective of offense is to get good shots. We got good shots, and had those fallen at a more efficient clip, the scoreboard could have been a little more interesting."
In the absence of Brenegan and Dyer, Caleb Bridgewater (Charlotte, N.C.) stepped up with his second double-digit scoring effort and a career-high 13 points. He was 5-of-9 from the field and 3-of-6 from three.
"Big heart from Caleb tonight," Benson said. "When Ren was healthy and playing, Caleb wasn't getting as much opportunity. Bridge has a lot of sweat equity and a ton of time invested here. I trust him to do the things that most guys don't want to do; most guys don't want to do the nasty, filthy things he does. He is bleeding. There was sweat on his face and tears in his eyes. He left it all out there."
EJ Bush (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) and Tyler Bowens (Greenville, S.C.) rounded out C-N's double-digit scorers. They both had 10 each. Bush scored all 10 of his point in the first half.
While Carson-Newman's offense was mired in the doldrums, its defense held the league's highest scoring offense 15 points below its season average on 44.5 percent shooting. The Railsplitters were number one in the SAC entering the game shooting 50.3 percent from the field. The scoring output was the Railsplitters second lowest scoring night of the season and the shooting percentage was its fourth of the year below 45 percent.
"You can't catch every raindrop against a team like LMU," Benson said. "They prefer high volume threes both in attempts and makes. We wanted to impact that because they can do that in such a spurty way that they can take a five point game to a 21-point game in the blink of an eye. I thought we did impact the three, but in doing that we got more exposed at the rim. Doing that, they had a lot of back door layups they exposed us on. We adjusted at half and cut that in half in the second half. That's the one big takeaway for us. We have to make sure that we go into every game with a plan, but we need to adjust in real time and that adjustment then has to be consistent for the remainder of the game."
Jordan Walters led LMU with 17 points. Jordan Guest followed with a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Alex Dahling and Chase Rankin had 14 and 13, respectively.
Carson-Newman returns home Saturday to take on Newberry at 4 p.m. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network starts at 3:45 with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff on Mountain Sports 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.
