HARROGATE, Tenn. -- The No. 25 Railsplitters (12-4, 7-3 SAC) will wrap up the first half of the South Atlantic Conference slate on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. when they travel to Greeneville, Tenn. to face the archrival Tusculum Pioneers (7-8, 4-6 SAC) for the 171st time.
 
Lincoln Memorial heads into Wednesday night following back-to-back lopsided wins, which tidied up a strenuous week that saw the Railsplitters play three games in six days. After beating Anderson by 17 points on the road last Wednesday, the Railsplitters returned to Tex Turner Arena on Saturday and crushed the Catawba Indians 101-80. The final score wasn't indicative of how one-sided that game really was, either, as the Railsplitters led by 32 points with two minutes left before the Indians closed on a 13-1 run.
 
The quartet of Chris Perry (Bartow, Fla.), Luquon Choice (Laurens, S.C.), Trevon Shaw (St. Helena Island, S.C.) and Dorian Pinson (Greenville, S.C.) accounted for nearly every bit of Lincoln Memorial's offense against Catawba, combining for 86 of the team's 101 points. Perry had his best game of the season to lead that four-headed monster, as he collected a season-high 28 points and 15 rebounds to record his second straight double-double.
 
Starting power forward Emanuel Terry (Enterprise, Ala.) has yet to play in 2017, but the Railsplitters have kept their head above water largely due to Perry's recent play. The University of South Florida transfer has scored at least 20 points in five of his last eight games and has combined for 53 points and 27 rebounds in the last two. He currently leads LMU in scoring with 17.1 points per game on 68.1 percent shooting.
 
Along with Perry's increased productivity, Choice has been a workhorse for the Railsplitters this season. The Laurens, S.C. native, who along with Pinson was tabbed on the Bevo Francis Award Top 100 Watch List on Sunday, has played at least 35 minutes in 10 of his 16 appearances and leads the SAC in minutes played with 554. Choice, who already broke the program record for career three-pointers, needs 34 more minutes of playing time to break Brandon Armstrong's career record of 3,496 minutes played.
 
The Railsplitters will try to piece together their third winning streak of the season of at least three games against a Tusculum Pioneers team that is trying to reclaim its early-season form.
 
After opening the 2016-17 campaign by winning four of its first five games, Tusculum has been in a tailspin with a 3-7 record since the start of December. Several of those losses were nail biters, though, as the Pioneers lost by three at home to Catawba, five at King and most recently suffered a four-point loss to No. 3 nationally-ranked and undefeated Queens. Tusculum has also had some head-scratching results, as the Pioneers had to go to overtime to shake off 3-13 Mars Hill and grinded out a three-point win over 2-14 Brevard.
 
The Pioneers boast a dangerous offensive outfit that is averaging 85 points per game on 45.6 percent shooting and a 39.7 percent mark from three-point range, the second-best three-point field-goal percentage in the SAC. Tusculum is also making nearly 26 trips to the free-throw line per game and scoring an average of 18 points per game there.
 
The kicker is that Tusculum has needed to be that good on offense to make up for sub-par defensive numbers, as the Pioneers are allowing 85.3 points per game, 46 percent shooting and a 38.9 percent clip from behind the arc. Tusculum is ranked second-to-last in the SAC in three-point field-goal percentage defense and ninth in points per game allowed. They have been even worse in league play, allowing 88 points per appearance. The Railsplitters enter Wednesday's contest ranked second in the league in scoring (94.4) and first in three-point percentage (40.6).
 
Five players are averaging double figures for the Pioneers. The dynamic senior guard Kendall Patterson leads that group with 15.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.3 steals per game on 45.7 percent shooting. Ronnie Baylark is chipping in 15.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game on 47.7 percent shooting, while Cory Fagan is averaging 12.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. Chase Mounce - a 6-10 senior center - is figuring in 10.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, while Zach Davis has been good for 9.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per night.
 
Lincoln Memorial has won 18 straight games against Tusculum and owns a commanding 128-42 lead in the all-time series that dates back to 1930. Despite that long winning streak that started in January 2010, the Railsplitters have had some tough battles against the Pioneers.
 
During last season's 24-game winning streak that went from January 6 to March 24, Lincoln Memorial only won two of those games by less than 10 points: the 103-102 win over West Liberty in the national semifinals and an 82-77 win over Tusculum at Tex Turner Arena. The Railsplitters trailed at the half and rallied to lead by as many as 15 points, but the Pioneers made things interesting late.
 
Tusculum also made things a bit difficult on the Railsplitters in a 103-92 win at Pioneer Arena in the second regular-season meeting in 2015-16. In fact, that was just an eight-point game with 32 seconds left before Lincoln Memorial closed it out.
 
Tip-off between Lincoln Memorial and Tusculum is set for 8 p.m. on Wednesday night in Greeneville. Live stats, video and audio links are available at www.LMURailsplitters.com.
 
Five things to watch for against Tusculum
1. Choice has played well in his last three games against the Pioneers. He had 24 points on 8-for-14 shooting in last season's meeting in Tex Turner Arena. He also tallied 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting when the Railsplitters ended Tusculum's season in the quarterfinals of the 2016 SAC Championship. He had 15 points, five rebounds and five assists in the trip to Greeneville.
 
2. Tusculum has been solid at home this season with a 5-2 record. The Pioneers' only home losses were by three points to Catawba and four points to No. 3 nationally-ranked Queens.
 
3. Tusculum's roster is a strange mix. The top-five scorers are all upperclassmen, but the rest of the team consists of four freshmen, three sophomores and one other senior in Vincent Brown, who has averaged just 6.7 minutes per game.
 
4. Redshirt-senior Paul Woodson (Cincinnati, Ohio) has stepped up in the absence of Terry. He scored a career-high 18 points in 31 minutes at Anderson and followed that up by putting in 10 points in 24 minutes against Catawba. Over that same span, he's compiled nine assists and 14 rebounds.
 
5. The Railsplitters have actually been better on the offensive end on the road than at home this season. Lincoln Memorial is averaging 98.6 points per game on 53.9 percent shooting on the road as compared to 96.6 points per game on 53.1 percent shooting at home. The Railsplitters are shooting 44.9 percent from three on the road.