Lady Eagles finish season ranked 15th in WBCA poll
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – In the final Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Association Poll released after the national championship, Carson-Newman was ranked 15th to end 2025-26 season.
WBCA Postseason Top 25 Poll (PDF)
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – In the final Women's Basketball Coaches' Association Poll released after the national championship, Carson-Newman was ranked 15th to end 2025-26 season.
The Lady Eagles were not ranked in the WBCA poll all season, but end the season as the highest-ranked Southeast region school.
In head coach Mike Mincey's tenure, the program has now been ranked for 56 total weeks.
Carson-Newman won the program's second-ever Southeast Regional Championship to compete in the Elite Eight. To get to Pittsburgh, the Lady Eagles defeated three ranked teams, #12 Columbus State, #15 Lincoln Memorial and #18 Lenoir-Rhyne.
Overall, Carson-Newman won six games against ranked teams this season, the most ranked wins in a season in at the least the past two decades.
The NCAA Tournament run was also the program's eighth appearance in the last nine years. No team in the Southeast region has more NCAA Tournament appearances over the past decade than C-N's eight. Carson-Newman is also one of just two schools in the South Atlantic Conference with multiple Elite Eight appearances.
This historic season for Carson-Newman women's basketball was defined by a series of elite efforts.
We'll start with points. Jennifer Sullivan and Mattie Nuckolls both scored north of 500 points this season 571 and 507, respectively. They are just the third pair of teammates in program history to score at least 500 points in the same season, joining Lindsey Taylor and Braelyn Wykle in 2023-24 and Haris Price and Mika Wester in 2017-18.
On the topic of scoring and shooting, Sullivan closed her career with 148 career three-pointers, the eighth-most in program history. 87 of those triples came this season, the second-most in a season in program history.
Rebounding wise, Keeleigh Rogers finishes the year with the second-most defensive rebounds all time with 220. Her 286 boards are now eighth-most in a season.
Carson-Newman was an excellent passing team all season and two individuals stood out the most. Keeleigh Rogers dished out 138 assists, the eighth-most in a season and Emily Gonzalez had 117, 15th-best. They are just the second duo in program history with at least 100 assists in a season, joining Price and Wester in 2017-18.
Defensively, Gonzalez and Rogers were menaces all year long. Gonzalez's 73 takeaways are fourth-most in program history and Rogers' 71 are fifth-most.
And finally defensively, Mattie Nuckolls completed the year with 65 rejections, the fourth-most in a season for the program.
This season marks the fourth time in school history that a poll ranks Carson-Newman to end the year. The other three seasons came in 2004-05, 2017-18 and 2020-21.
