NEWBERRY, S.C. – After seeing its five-game winning streak snapped on Wednesday night, Carson-Newman looks to ignite a new string Saturday at 2 p.m. in Eleazer Arena against South Atlantic Conference foe Newberry.
The second half continues to be an issue for the Lady Eagles in their losses this season having held the lead in each setback this year. Carson-Newman (10-5, 6-3) is 9-5 when leading after 20 minutes this year after going 63-6 over the past three years. Of the 10 second-half quarters, coach Mike Mincey's crew has outscored its foe twice. Opponents are winning the second half 42-35 on average in the final 20 minutes.
While the Orange and Blue are in the top 10 in the country in three-pointers and percentage from long range, easy baskets have been hard to come by in the five losses. Losing by an average of less than six points per game, C-N is being outscored 34-25 on average in the paint winning the battle just once.
"We have a lot on our side of things that we need to correct," Mincey said. "Our record is good but we have been close in our losses and we just aren't making the critical plays in winning time. We have shot ourselves in the foot way too many times and shouldn't have the five losses that we have."
One trend that the team can be excited about is the second quarter where the team has stifled its opponents yielding 14 points per game giving up 33 percent shooting from the floor (69-211) and 24 percent from deep (22-92).
"Our style of play by using 10 players and making wholesale changes fatigues the opponent," Mincey said. "By the time they get to the second quarter they start to lose their legs and they haven't been as efficient shooting."
It has been a dominating recent stretch for the Lady Eagles against the Wolves winning each of the last seven contests and 11 of the last 13 stretching their lead in the series to 30-17. The seven-game mark is the second-longest winning streak for either side in the series as C-N won nine in-a-row from 2000-04. The last time Newberry (8-6, 5-4) beat Mincey's crew came in the SAC Quarterfinals on March 2, 2016, 85-74 in Eleazer Arena.
Here are the first starting 5⃣ of the best scorers, rebounders and stat-sheet stuffers in #D2WBB: https://t.co/3hnpRVAPjN.
— NCAA Division II (@NCAADII) January 17, 2020
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Five of the seven victories have come by double figures but both single-digit affairs came in the Palmetto State including a 63-61 comeback win for C-N last season. The Lady Eagles trailed by 14 points but used a 21-0 second-half run to come back behind 24 points and 12 boards from Kayla Marosites (Elizabethton, Tenn.).
Newberry had huge shoes to fill for this season seeing the graudations of the conference's fifth- and sixth-leading scorers in Meg Essex and Shelby Britten with the duo combining for 32 of the team's 69 points per game last year.
The Wolves have been a difficult team to figure out this season. On Dec. 11, the team handed Anderson its only conference loss of the year while one month later losing by 26 on the road to 6-9 Lenoir-Rhyne. Five of the team's eight wins this season have come by double figures while two have come by possession.
Coach Joanna Tincher's team is committing 22 turnovers per game this season, the seventh-worst mark in the country this year. The outlier this year has been 11 in a game as the club has 11 games with at least 20 giveaways and no fewer than 16 in league play.
Despite ranking third in the SAC in free-throw percentage, no team gets to the line fewer times than the Wolves who are averaging 16 attempts per game. Shooting from deep has also been an issue with the club ranking ninth in the league at 29 percent as a team.
Newberry is a strong rebounding team with 43 per game, third in the league and 34th nationally being plus-six on the glass on average. The team has also been stingy defensively yielding a 37 percent clip, good for third in the SAC.
Three players are averaging double figures this season with two at 12 and one at 10 per game. Keli Romas, the league's best foul shooter at 87 percent, has scored in double figures in four straight averaging 14.8 points per game on 59 percent shooting in that span.
Saturday's affair can be enjoyed on two platforms. Radio coverage can be found on 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) with an audio stream available on cneagles.com/live starting at 1:45 p.m. with "The Appalachian Electric Cooperative Countdown to Tip-Off".
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