With the regular season over, the men’s and women’s basketball teams are turning their eyes ahead to the Southern Conference (SOCON) tournament. The winner of the tournament gets an automatic place in the March Madness tournament.
Both the men’s and women’s tournaments are being played in Asheville, North Carolina at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center.
The women are sitting at 13-16 and 3-11 in SOCON play and are seeded as the 8 seed. They will be starting tournament play on Thursday, March 6 at 11 a.m. and will be playing the number one seeded University of North Carolina Greensboro Spartans. That game will be streamed on ESPN+.
This season the Cats were led by leading scorer and graduate transfer guard Avyonce Carter. Carter averaged 14.7 points per game (ppg) and 6.6 rebounds per game.
This is the first time since the 2014 basketball season that the women’s team had double-digit wins in a season. This is a successful first season for coach Jonathan Tsipis said WCU Director of Athletics ,Alex Gary Hear what he expects.
The men’s team is sitting as the 9 seed and will open SOCON tournament play against the 8-seeded Mercer Bears on Friday, March 7 at 5 p.m. on ESPN+.
“We want to go in there and ruin someone’s season. We expect to get another go at some of the top teams in the conference and we expect to win,” redshirt sophomore Cord Stansberry said in an email.
The men’s team is sitting at 8-21 overall and 4-14 in SOCON play this season. The team’s leading scorer is senior forward Bernard Pelote. Pelote is averaging 14.3 ppg and a team-leading 7.4 rebounds per game.
When asked about the men’s expectations, Gary said, that the team is underrated and that the team is excited to pull off an upset.
Dylan Branscome contributed to the report.
