CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Railsplitters (10-3, 5-2 SAC) will attempt to take down a top-five nationally-ranked opponent for the second time in three games on Monday when they travel to Charlotte, N.C. to face the unbeaten and No. 3 ranked Queens Royals (13-0, 7-0 SAC) inside the Levine Center at 8 p.m. Lincoln Memorial and Queens were originally scheduled to play on Saturday afternoon, but the game was pushed back to Monday due to inclement weather.
Lincoln Memorial enters Monday's showdown against the Royals riding a two-game winning streak that includes a 74-60 win over the No. 5 Bellarmine Knights last Saturday at Tex Turner Arena. It would be the Railsplitters' third signature win of the season, as Lincoln Memorial handled the now 10-2 Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers by 16 points in the first game of the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic on November 18.
The Railsplitters kicked off 2017 and followed up that win over Bellarmine with a wire-to-wire 93-64 win over the Mars Hill Lions on Wednesday night in Harrogate. Lincoln Memorial dominated the first half, shooting 58.1 percent and scoring 57 points to build a commanding 20-point lead. However, the Railsplitters were sluggish in the second half, scoring just 36 points on 43 percent shooting. LMU managed to expand the lead over the final 20 minutes, though, as Mars Hill shot just 31 percent in the second half to fall to the Railsplitters for the 15th consecutive time.
Chris Perry (Bartow, Fla.) scored a game-high 23 points in only 24 minutes of work against the Lions, and he continued to work efficiently on the offensive end. The Bartow, Fla. native converted six of his nine field-goal attempts and went 11-for-12 at the free-throw line to surpass the 20-point mark for the fourth time this season. Perry is ranked second in the SAC in field-goal percentage with a gaudy 66.7 percent clip, while his 15.6 points per game are the ninth-most in the league.
Perry is one of five LMU players ranked in the top 20 in the conference in shooting, as the Railsplitters lead the league in field-goal percentage offense with a 53.1 percent clip.
Emanuel Terry (Enterprise, Ala.) is third in the league in shooting with a 66.2 percent mark,
Dorian Pinson (Greenville, S.C.) is 12th at 53.8 percent,
Trevon Shaw (St. Helena Island, S.C.) is 16th at 51.1 percent and
Luquon Choice (Laurens, S.C.) is 20th at 48.1 percent.
Monday is the first game of a road-heavy stretch for the Railsplitters, who play six of their next eight games away from the friendly confines of Tex Turner Arena. Lincoln Memorial has played just one true road game over the past month, beating Wingate 84-72 at Cuddy Arena on December 14.
The Railsplitters will be welcomed back to the road by arguably the toughest challenger they have faced this season in a Queens team that has yet to be beaten and hasn't shown many deficiencies along the way.
The Royals remained undefeated by staving off the Catawba Indians 83-77 on Wednesday night in Salisbury, N.C. That was only the third time this season that a team has lost to Queens by less than 10 points. Johnson C. Smith (89-83) and North Georgia (92-84) were the only other teams that were able to do that, as Queens is winning by an average of 19.2 points per game this season.
The Royals graduated its two leading scorers off of last season's team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in All-SAC first team selections Rob Lewis and Sean Morgan, but Queens has thrived this season in spite of that thanks to a balanced offensive attack. Seven different players are averaging at least seven points per game for the Royals.
Northern Kentucky transfer Daniel Camps leads the Royals in scoring (14.4) and rebounding (7.4) and is shooting 73 percent from the field, but had missed four straight games before returning to contribute just four points against Catawba on Wednesday night. A number of guys have picked up the slack in Camps' absence, though.
Todd Withers is putting up 14.2 points and 6.5 rebounds per game on a 42.4 percent mark from three-point range, while Jalin Alexander is producing 13.3 points per game on 46 percent shooting. Mike Davis – a transfer from Francis Marion – is pouring in 12.1 points and 2.8 assists per game, while Ike Agusi is accounting for 9.6 points and 4.6 assists per game. Darryl White (8.5 points, 4.8 rebounds per) and Jared Hendryx (7.7 points, 5.1 rebounds per, 73.1 percent shooting) have also contributed this season.
Based on those individual numbers, it should come as little surprise that Queens is an outstanding offensive team that is scoring 89.9 points per game on 51.2 percent shooting and a 38.9 mark from three. The Royals are ranked 12th in the nation in field-goal percentage and 16th in scoring, and have been held below 46 percent shooting just one time this season. That made little difference, though, as Queens shot 40.6 percent in a 28-point drubbing of Coker.
The Royals are also solid on the defensive end, holding opponents to 39.3 percent shooting and 70.7 points per game. Foes have accounted for a meager 32 percent shooting from three against the Royals. Queens is ranked second in the SAC in blocks per game with 5.1 and steals per game with 10.5.
There aren't many chinks in the armor, but Queens is vulnerable in a couple of areas. The Royals turn the ball over at a relatively high rate, averaging the fourth-most turnovers per game in the SAC with 16.5. Queens leads the league in free-throw attempts per game with right around 26, but is shooting 66.1 percent at the charity stripe, the third-worst percentage in the league. On the other end of the spectrum, the Royals are foul-prone, committing an average of 20.7 fouls per game. Finally, Queens is far from great on the backboards, ranking sixth in the league in rebounding margin with a plus-3.0 disparity for the season.
The Railsplitters are 10-1 all-time against Queens and haven't lost to the Royals since 1993, ripping off eight straight wins since the rivalry was renewed in 2013.
Lincoln Memorial defeated Queens three times during the 2015-16 campaign, winning 86-76 at Tex Turner Arena, 92-66 in Charlotte and 95-67 in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional.
In that trip to Charlotte, which was a highly-anticipated battle between the No. 4 Railsplitters and the No. 6 Royals, Lincoln Memorial never trailed and led by 23 points at the break to hand Queens just its third loss of the season.
Tip-off between the Railsplitters and Royals is set for 8 p.m. on Monday at the Levine Center. Live stats, video and audio links are available at www.LMURailsplitters.com.
Five things to watch against the Royals:
1. The Railsplitters are 3-0 against Queens in Charlotte since the Royals joined the South Atlantic Conference prior to the 2013-14 season. Aside from last season's 26-point blowout, the other two games have been mostly competitive. On January 18, 2014, the Railsplitters squeaked by the Royals 72-71. On November 22, 2014, LMU won 66-51, but that contest was a four-point game with less than five minutes to play.
2. Choice hit three three-pointers against Mars Hill, putting the Laurens, S.C. native just six away from matching Carson-Newman's Ish Sanders for the SAC career record of 340.
3. Queens' Hendryx is tied for the SAC lead in blocks with 27. He has at least two blocks in four consecutive games, including a season-high six blocks against Mars Hill on December 17.
4. Queens currently has a two-game lead over Lincoln Memorial, Carson-Newman and Anderson in the SAC standings. The Railsplitters have won four consecutive SAC regular-season titles.
5. The Royals lead the SAC in scoring defense and have allowed 90 points just one time this season – a 112-90 evisceration of the Carson-Newman Eagles.
