GREENVILLE, S.C. – With wins in six straight games and 50 percent shooting in 16 of the last 24 quarters, second-seeded Carson-Newman aims to avenge its worst shooting and scoring game from a Feb. 12 matchup with Catawba taking on the third-seeded Indians in the South Atlantic Conference Tournament semifinals on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
"Once you go to a neutral site at Timmons Arena at Furman, it changes things a little bit," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "There is a little nervousness to most all of the players. It's a different arena. You have to make plays and you have to make shots. When we played here, we could not find the bottom of the net but I thought we had good looks. That's our last loss so we are looking forward to the rematch. Hopefully we can play poised."
Carson-Newman (24-5) is in the SAC semifinals for the 20th time 6-13 in the penultimate match of the tournament. The Orange and Blue have dropped eight of its last nine semifinal games with the lone exception coming in 2018, a six-point win over Lincoln Memorial. The last four games have been decided by a total of 20 points.
This season is the 18th time that the semifinals have featured a two versus three matchup with each seed winning nine times. In three of the last four times dating back to 2015 that the two and three seeds have played, the eventual champion played in that matchup including Tusculum as both the two and three in the last two years.
Carson-Newman and Catawba (23-5) have met 74 times overall with the Lady Eagles on top 39-35. This will be the 10th postseason matchup. The Indians have 6-3 overall edge in the postseason including a 67-48 NCAA Tournament first round win in 2021.
Seven of the nine meetings have come in the SAC Tournament with this being the first since the Indians won a quarterfinal home game on March 4, 2015, 79-52. The last time the Lady Eagles won in the postseason over Catawba came on March 5, 2014, an 82-68 triumph at Mossy Creek.
This year is the second time the teams face off in the SAC semifinals with the Lady Eagles winning the most recent meeting 76-59 in the two/three affair on Feb. 27, 1998 at Mars Hill. It was a flip of the script after third-seeded Catawba won 88-84 on Feb. 20, 1993 en route to the first of three tournament titles for the program.
In both games this year, Catawba has led by a possession with less than 45 seconds to play with C-N winning 83-78 in overtime on the road before falling 56-52 on Feb. 12 when it scored a season-low five points in the third quarter. Facing a 14-point deficit, it was the fourth-largest the team has seen in 2021-22.
The Indians have won six of its last seven games with the lone exception coming at UVA Wise in the regular-season finale, 75-59. Otherwise five of those games have been decided by double digits with two coming against the other two teams left in the field, Anderson and at Wingate.
Shemya Stanback guides a balanced effort as a first-team All-SAC selection earning the conference's Defensive Player of the Year laurel. Lyrik Thorne was a second-team all-league pick as the team's leading scorer who is averaging 17 points per game in her last 16 outings with at least 19 in each of her last six.
Broadcast coverage airs on the Eagle Sports Network starting at 1:45 for "The Appalachian Electric Cooperative Countdown to Tip-Off" on Mountain Sports 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) with an audio and video stream available on cneagles.com/live free of charge.
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