CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Looking to avoid losing two straight games for the third time this season, Carson-Newman prepares for the final week of South Atlantic Conference play Saturday afternoon with a 2 p.m. tip-off at Queens.
"I thought our team played hard and gave good effort on Wednesday at Tusculum," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "We have done a good job on the road this year of being locked in and being smart. The key on the road is to shoot it well and play well defensively on the road and I think we have done that this season. We have to make sure that we know our goals and understand how important each game is the rest of the year."
Six of Carson-Newman's seven losses this season have come by six points or less. The last four setbacks have come by a combined 15 points. Offensively, the efficiency numbers are not drastically different but the team is posting over 11 points fewer at 76 points per game during the seven losses.
Saturday is the 14th installment of Carson-Newman (18-7, 14-5) and Queens (5-20, 4-15) with the Lady Eagles winning each of the last 11, their longest current string against any SAC member, after dropping the first two of the series. Of those 11 victories, all but two have come by double figures with the average margin of victory has been 23.
During the last five journeys to the Levine Center, C-N has won by double figures in three of the five but needed to grind out a 65-62 win last season. The Lady Eagles led by 21 with 3:33 to go in the third using a 19-2 run between the third and fourth periods to get back in the game. Queens charged back to get a possession in the final minute to take the lead.
When the two sides faced off at Holt Fieldhouse on Jan. 11, Addison Byrd and Braelyn Wykle combined for 45 points and went 17-for-24 from the field and 9-for-14 from deep in an 89-63 victory. Byrd posted a season-high 22 points and Wykle matched the school record with seven triples.
The Lady Eagles forced 21 turnovers in the game scoring 28 points off of those giveaways, their second-most of the year. C-N finished plus-nine on the glass and racked up 17 second-chance points.
The Orange and Blue's bench kept the Lady Eagles afloat in the first 20 minutes going 11-for-17 from the field compared to a 5-for-15 clip from the starting five. C-N saw its bench combine for 25 points. Overall, the team produced 36 bench points.
In a league where the longest winning streak is two games, Queens has the longest losing streak in the SAC having dropped each of its last four since beating Coker 68-58 on Feb. 5. During the skid, the Royals are losing by an average of 15 points per game.
Coach Sarah Jansen's crew is consistent but shoots lower percentages from the field, from three and at the line in home affairs. In 2020, the team is shooting 37 percent from the field and is 11th in the conference on the year in team field-goal percentage making 38 percent.
Kristian Eanes turned the ball over seven times and went 4-for-13 from the field but she finished the night with 21 points going 13-for-17 at the line in the first meeting against Mincey's team. She is first in the league in free-throw attempts and makes ranking second in steals with 69.
Queens is eighth in the league in field-goal percentage defense yielding a 40 percent margin on the year while ranking 283rd in the country in rebounding margin at minus-seven. Opponents are scoring 66 points per game, eighth in the SAC.
While Eanes is the team's leading scorer in league action at over 17 per night, Julia Raflund is next on the list at just south of nine converting on 55 percent of her shots. She has been in double figures in three of her last five.
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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