Lenoir-Rhyne Earns Top Seed in SAC Women’s Basketball Championship Bracket
Lenoir-Rhyne, which finished the regular season with a 22-5 record, will be the No. 1 seed in next week's 2014 Food Lion SAC Basketball Championship. Lenoir-Rhyne and Wingate shared the SAC title with identical 17-5 conference records, but the Bears earn the higher seed by virtue of a tiebreaker.
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Lenoir-Rhyne, which finished the regular season with a 22-5 record, will be the No. 1 seed in next week's 2014 Food Lion SAC Basketball Championship. Lenoir-Rhyne and Wingate shared the SAC title with identical 17-5 conference records, but the Bears earn the higher seed by virtue of a tiebreaker.
L-R beat Mars Hill and Wingate defeated Brevard on Saturday, giving the 24th-ranked Bears their fourth and the Bulldogs their 11th SAC titles in program history. The two teams split head-to-head, so Lenoir-Rhyne's tiebreak advantage comes from a 2-0 record against No. 3 seed Lincoln Memorial, while Wingate is 0-2 against the Railsplitters.
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Lenoir-Rhyne will host No. 8 seed Coker and Wingate will host No. 7 seed Newberry in Wednesday's SAC Championship quarterfinal round. Coker beat Tusculum in a win-and-in showdown on Saturday to finish 10-14 overall and 10-12 in the SAC. Newberry, meanwhile, completed the regular season 15-11 overall and 11-11 in the conference.
LMU earned the bracket's No. 3 seed after finishing 15-10 overall and 14-7 in the SAC. The Railsplitters' quarterfinal opponent will be sixth-seeded Anderson, which went 15-13 overall and 11-11 in the league. Despite falling at Queens on Saturday, AU won a tiebreaker over Newberry for the No. 6 seed by virtue of a 1-1 record against Lenoir-Rhyne, while the Wolves went 0-2. Anderson and Newberry split head-to-head.
Carson-Newman defeated Newberry and Catawba fell at LMU on Saturday, giving both teams 12-10 SAC records. Carson-Newman wins a tiebreaker over Catawba for the event's No. 4 seed – they split head-to-head - due to its 1-1 record against Lenoir-Rhyne, compared to the Indians' mark of 0-2 against the top seed.
Carson-Newman will host Catawba in Wednesday's quarterfinals.
After the quarterfinal round, the SAC Championship semifinals will take place on Saturday, March 8 at Timmons Arena in Greenville, S.C., followed by the final on Sunday. Anderson is the event's defending champion.
2014 Food Lion SAC Women's Basketball Championship
Quarterfinals – March 5
No. 8 Coker at No. 1 Lenoir-Rhyne, 6 p.m.
No. 7 Newberry at No. 2 Wingate, 7 p.m.
No. 6 Anderson at No. 3 Lincoln Memorial, 6 p.m.
No. 5 Catawba at No. 4 Carson-Newman, 6 p.m.
Semifinals – March 8
No. 1/No. 8 vs. No. 4/No. 5, 5:30 p.m.
No. 2/No. 7 vs. No. 3/No. 6, 8 p.m.
Final – March 9
Semifinal 1 winner vs. Semifinal 2 winner, 4 p.m.