GREENVILLE, S.C. – Looking to punch a ticket in the South Atlantic Conference Women's Basketball Championships for the second time in three years, second-seeded Carson-Newman looks to avoid a third loss to third-seeded Tusculum Saturday at 2:30 p.m. from Timmons Arena.
Carson-Newman (22-7) is in the SAC semifinals for the 18th time and first since the 2018 season. The program had dropped seven straight semifinal contests prior to beating Lincoln Memorial 79-73 in that trip to Furman. As a program, the team is 6-12 in the penultimate match of the tournament.
This season is the 17th time that the semifinals have featured a two versus three matchup but only the fourth in the last 10 years. Each seed has won eight times but the No. 2 seed has won four of the last five.
Saturday is the 76th time that C-N and Tusculum (22-7) will meet overall with the Lady Eagles on top 56-19. Despite the frequency and long history, the two programs have only met in the SAC Tournament twice. The Pioneers won both meetings, doing so as the top seed over a No. 5 C-N team in the semifinals in 2009, 85-70 and as the No. 3 seed over second-seeded C-N in the semifinals in 2006, 76-59. Both times, Tusculum lost the championship game.
Tusculum won both regular-season meetings this season winning each game by five points. The Orange and Blue have not lost three times to the Pioneers in the same season losing three straight games one time in the history of the series from 2011-12.
"The games have obviously been very competitive," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "We have held leads in the second half in both games. We turned it over exactly 22 times and lost both games by five points. That will be a topic of our conversation is not turning the ball over. They do a really good job of getting their hands in there and getting steals."
In the two meetings this year, the Lady Eagles have led for 42:41 of the 80 minutes leading by five with five minutes to play at Holt Fieldhouse and by nine with 8:46 to go at Pioneer Arena. C-N is plus-eight in the first three quarters but is being outscored 54-36 in the final period seeing the Pioneers score a combined 13 points off of 10 turnovers.
Coach Devan Carter's team has won seven of its last nine games losing the two contests by a combined seven points. The Pioneers blitzed Wingate 82-40 in the quarterfinal round forcing 28 turnovers and converting that into 28 points. Five players scored in double figures led by 15 from Aliyah Miller.
Tusculum put two players on all-conference teams in first-team pick Mia Long and honorable mention selection Kasey Johnson, both 1,000-point career scorers. Long ranks seventh among active Division II players with 283 steals and leads the nation among active players with a 3.41 career steals per game tally.
The Pioneers use their defense to ignite offense ranking seventh in the country in turnovers forced, 23 per game, and steals, 367. In each of the last seven games, the team has produced double-digit steals bringing its season total to 24 through 29 outings. It failed to do so in three of the first five games but has at least 10 in 21 of the last 24.
In February, the team averaged 66 points per game and saw a big dip in efficiency making 34 percent from the field and 26 percent from long range. The team has shot below 40 percent in 10 of its last 12 games. Tusculum is 10-1 when shooting at least 40 percent from the field with the lone exception coming in a 78-71 loss to Catawba on Nov. 30.
For the Eagle Sports Network's coverage, fans can tune into 106.3 (WPFT-FM) and cneagles.com/live starting at 2:15 p.m. with "The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off". The game can also be seen on SAC Live by visiting cneagles.com/live.
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