Mission accomplished!
After a season in which they worked hard to be in this position (sweeping both the regular season games of the Southern Conference and the SoCon tournament), Saturday morning the Lady Mocs basketball team hosts Rutgers in what amounts to a home game played before a (hopefully) very large hometown crowd.
Bring on the Scarlet Knights!
UTC (28-2) plays Rutgers (21-11) from the Big East Conference in a first-round NCAA Tournament game. Tip-off time is 11 a.m.
The other match-up at the Roundhouse will feature Midwest No. 2 seed and SEC member Vanderbilt against No. 15 seed Lipscomb University from the Atlantic Sun Conference.
The UTC-Rutgers winner will play the Vanderbilt-Lipscomb survivor March 22 for the right to advance to the Sweet 16 in Norman, Okla.
The Lady Mocs have the longest active winning streak in the nation at 26 games. UTC owns the No. 1 winning percentage in the nation (93.3 percent) and the most wins in the nation.
Coach Wes Moore is taking his Lady Mocs to their fourth consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Rutgers, which finished 10-6 in the Big East, owns impressive wins this season over current No. 20 TCU and No. 23 Miami (Fla.), plus Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Old Dominion.
UTC and Rutgers have two common opponents – Ole Miss and Tennessee. The Lady Mocs defeated Ole Miss 79-77 in overtime and Rutgers handed the Lady Rebels a 65-50 setback in the preseason NIT. Both teams lost at Tennessee – UTC lost 83-52 and Rutgers lost 59-49.
Rutgers is led by All-America guard Cappie Pondexter, who is a two-time All-Big East selection and is a finalist for three national player-of-the-year awards (Wooden Women’s Award, State Farm Wade Trophy and Naismith) as well as this year’s Nancy Lieberman Award (top point guard).
Veteran coach C. Vivian Stringer is in her ninth season with the Scarlet Knights and 32nd year overall.
Nicole Mattison will be assigned to guard All-American guard Cappie Pondexter. Click to enlarge photo.
- Photo2 by Tim Evearitt (file photo)