JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman (8-3, 4-2 South Atlantic Conference) will try to put a halt to a three-game losing streak at the hands of Limestone (3-5, 0-4 SAC) when the Saints arrive in Holt Fieldhouse for a 4 p.m. tipoff Saturday.
C-N enters the contest fresh off a road loss at UVA Wise, while the Saints have dropped four consecutive conference games. Neither C-N nor Limestone has ever won four consecutive games in the 12-game history of the series, which is tied 6-6 heading into the 13th meeting.
Limestone is going for a fourth straight win in the series against C-N. The Saints buried 17-of-36 threes in a win in Holt Fieldhouse last season. All five of Carson-Newman's wins in the series under head coach Chuck Benson have beeb by double-digits.
Carson-Newman has been strong at bouncing back from defeat. Since a late 2023 swoon that saw Carson-Newman win once in 14 games, C-N has been strong at responding to losses. The Eagles haven't dropped back-to-back games since breaking out of a six-game losing streak toward the end of the 2023 season from Jan. 25 - Feb. 15.
Senior shooting guard Nick Brenegan has been on a tear from beyond the arc. The eighth member of Carson-Newman's 200-three club, Brenegan is ninth in the country and first in the SAC with 29 threes made this season. Brenegan saw the second-longest streak of games with a three in his career come to an end at 23 games when he went 0-for-2 from deep at UVA Wise Wednesday night. He has made a minimum of three threes in six of his last eight games.
Carson-Newman saw a nine-game streak shooting better than 50 percent from the field come to an end at UVA Wise in a loss on Wednesday. The nine-game streak was the longest streak this century. C-N is still fifth in the country in field goal percentage at 52.7 percent. C-N's second-longest streak came in 2017-18 when it made 50 percent or better of its shots in seven straight games to start the season.
Jack Browder is second in the South Atlantic Conference in scoring and the league's leader in rebounding. He ranks sixth in the nation in rebounding. Browder and Wingate's Kendall Taylor, who leads the league in scoring, are the only two players in the conference who are top 10 in both lists (Limestone's Greg McKay narrowly misses the cut, sitting just outside the top 10 in ppg). In fact, Browder and Taylor flip their spots for scoring and rebounding with Browder taking the top spot on the boards and Taylor following behind in second.
Half of the top 14 scores in the SAC will be on the floor on Saturday. Browder, Trey Hubbard, Nick Brenegan and John Zhao for Carson-Newman, as welll as Sirr Hughes, Greg McKay and Isayah Owens for Limestone are all averaging north of 16.5 points per game. Depending up how you want to dive C-N's quartet into a threesome, the two teams have two of the five highest-scoring trios in NCAA Division II.
C-N has made double-digit threes in seven consecutive games. A pair of 8-for-23 days in Boone against King and Lees-McRae are the only two games this season C-N didn't hit 10+ threes.
Tipoff between the Eagles and Saints is slated for 4 p.m. Saturday. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network begins at 3:45 with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff on Mix 105.5 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live. A video stream is available with a subscription to FloSports at cneagles.com/FloMbb.
