TICKET PUNCHED! Lady Eagles earn NCAA Tournament bid as the sixth seed
For the seventh time in the past eight seasons, Carson-Newman is NCAA Tournament bound. The Lady Eagles earned their 14th ticket to NCAA Women’s Basketball Championships as announced late Sunday night.
VIDEO: Campbell Penland Interview
INDIANAPOLIS – For the seventh time in the past eight seasons, Carson-Newman is NCAA Tournament bound. The Lady Eagles earned their 14th ticket to NCAA Women's Basketball Championships as announced late Sunday night.
C-N is the number six seed in the region, matching up with the number three seed Anderson in the opening round.
Peach Belt champion North Georgia is the top seed in the Southeast region and will serve as host to the Southeast region tournament.
For the second straight season, C-N will enter the postseason with exactly 22 wins on its resume. The Lady Eagles finished second place with an 18-6 record in South Atlantic Conference games and have now finished in the top three of the conference standings for the eighth straight year.
Of the now 14 bids to the NCAA Tournament, eight of them have been accomplished in head coach Mike Mincey's 14-year tenure. In 21 total postseason games since going Division II, Carson-Newman is 9-12 and has won its first-round contest five times. The Lady Eagles are coming off a 2024 postseason in which they won a pair of regional games and made it to the regional title game for just the third time in school history.
"I think from the very beginning of the year they had another goal to get back to the NCAA Tournament," Mincey said. "This team was dead set on getting back to the NCAA Tournament and we find ourselves as a six seed. We do have a lot of players with experience in the NCAA Tournament. I try to tell them all the time to not take it for granted. There are players that never make a tournament in their career and we have players that are making multiple trips."
The Lady Eagles have plenty of NCAA tournament experience on the roster led by Lindsey Taylor (Maryville, Tenn.). The graduate student is set to compete in her fourth NCAA tournament. The four-time First Team All-SAC player is averaging 13.7 points per game while shooting a DII best 67.4 percent from the field.
Makayla Alvey (Dandridge, Tenn.), Campbell Penland (Sevierville, Tenn.) and Tori Rutherford (Rutledge, Tenn.) are gearing up for their third NCAA tournaments. Alvey and Penland have played in five NCAA Tournament games.
"Obviously, when you come into college your goal is to win games and get to the tournament," Penland said. "Starting my career at North Georgia and ending my career at North Georgia is just kind of a full circle moment. It's exciting for us that we've made it for another year because my sophomore year we didn't make it. We're excited to get back into it and hopefully finish out the season well."
For the second straight season, C-N will play Anderson four times. This past season, the two sides met twice in the regular season, once in the SAC tournament and the fourth time in the NCAA tournament. The Trojans earned the South Atlantic Conference's automatic bid by winning the conference tournament and defeated Carson-Newman on their way to doing so.
The winner of this matchup draws the winner of the two seed Coker and the seven seed Belmont Abbey.
Three wins are needed to advance to the National Quarterfinals which will be played March 24-28 in Pittsburgh, PA at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
