GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- For the second straight season, Tusculum University will face off with Wingate University in the quarterfinal round of the Pilot/Flying J South Atlantic Conference Women's Basketball Championship.

The Pioneers will host the Bulldogs on Wednesday, March 4 at 5:30 p.m. at Pioneer Arena for the right to advance to the semifinals on Saturday, March 7 at Timmons Arena in Greenville, South Carolina. The championship game will be Sunday, March 8 at 1 p.m. at Timmons Arena, with the tournament winner earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament.

Admission to Wednesday's quarterfinal game is $8 for adults, $4 for youth 12 and under and for seniors age 65 and older, and $4 for active and retired members of the military. College students with valid identification will be admitted for $2, though Tusculum students who show a valid ID will have their admission charge covered by the Tusculum athletic department. No complimentary tickets or pass lists will be available for the game, although official SAC passes will be honored. The single admission will also cover the men's SAC quarterfinal home game against Anderson, which will tip off at 7:30 Wednesday following the women's game.

Live video, statistics and audio of Wednesday's game will be available through links at tusculumpioneers.com, with local radio coverage provided through the Pioneer Sports Network on 95.5 FM and 1450 AM WSMG.

INSIDE THE MATCHUP
Tusculum (21-7, 16-6 SAC) earned the third seed in the tournament and will be playing a home quarterfinal game for the first time since 2012, when the Pioneers were upset 60-54 by Newberry. The Pioneers have not won a SAC tournament game since 2013, when the Pioneers won a pair of overtime games over Catawba and Lenoir-Rhyne before dropping a 55-52 decision to Anderson in the championship game. Tusculum is listed sixth in the latest NCAA Division II Southeast Region rankings, with the final pre-tournament rankings to be released prior to Wednesday's game.

Wingate (17-12, 11-11 SAC) is playing a road quarterfinal game for the first time since 2013, when the Bulldogs lost 59-57 at Lenoir-Rhyne. The Bulldogs have made four straight SAC Championship final appearances, winning in 2016 and 2017 and losing each of the last two years, including a 62-60 setback to Anderson in last year's final.

All-time, Tusculum is 1-3 against Wingate in SAC Championship tournament games. The Bulldogs beat the Pioneers 70-47 in the 2005 quarterfinals, and won 76-74 in the 2008 championship game. Tusculum's lone win over Wingate in the postseason came in 2011 by a score of 77-66 in the finals, giving the Pioneers their second straight championship.

Last year, the teams met in the quarterfinals and Tusculum led 41-33 with just under seven minutes left, but the Bulldogs went on an 11-0 run and held on in the final seconds for a 53-47 victory. Mia Long led Tusculum with 22 points and eight rebounds, but the Pioneers shot just 29.8 percent from the field and were outrebounded 45-31 by the Bulldogs in the loss.

The teams split their regular-season meetings, as Tusculum routed Wingate 77-57 at Pioneer Arena on Jan. 18 behind 17 points, eight assists and six steals from Long and runs of 20-0 in the second quarter and 15-0 in the third quarter. Tusculum led by as many as 35 points and scored 30 points off 23 Wingate turnovers in the win. On Saturday, the Pioneers visited Cuddy Arena and nearly pulled out the win despite shooting a woeful 22.5 percent (16-for-71) from the field. Wingate held on after nearly losing a 15-point lead, taking a 51-47 win to ensure a postseason rematch.

TUSCULUM PREVIEW
Long leads the Pioneers in scoring at 14.3 points per game, ranking her ninth in the SAC. Long has scored in double figures in 10 of her last 11 games, and on Feb. 22 against Coker became the 19th player in school history to reach 1,000 career points and the first to do so while playing just three seasons. Long, a senior guard from Ann Arbor, Michigan, is 11th in the conference in shooting at 45.9 percent and leads the SAC in steals at 3.5 per game, ranking her among the NCAA Division II leaders.

With senior guard Sydney Wilson lost for the season and her career due to injury, junior guard Jalia Arnwine has been called upon to pick up the scoring slack. Arnwine leads the Pioneers with 44 three-pointers and is 13th in the conference with 1.6 threes per game, including at least one in 17 straight games since January 1. Arnwine is averaging 8.4 points per game in the 10 games since Wilson's injury at Catawba on Jan. 25.

Junior post player Maddie Sutton has emerged as one of the top bigs in the league over the second half of the season, averaging a double-double of 10.1 points and 10.0 rebounds over the last 10 games which includes five double-doubles in that span. Sutton is sixth in the conference in rebounding at 8.4 per game, and is shooting 75.6 percent from the foul line for the year.

Senior forward Kasey Johnson, who was the first of three Pioneers to join the 1,000-point club this season, is averaging 10.5 points per game and has reached the 20-point mark five times this season, including a career-best 34 in a double-overtime win at Lenoir-Rhyne on Jan. 29. Johnson, whose 1,217 points are 14th all-time in program history, recently became the ninth player in school history to make 100 career three-pointers.

The Pioneers lead the conference in fewest turnovers per game (14.5) and have had 12 or fewer turnovers in seven of their last nine games. Tusculum also leads the SAC in steals per game (12.6) and is second to Catawba in turnovers forced per game at 22.8 per contest. The Pioneers are also second in offensive rebounds per game (14.3) and third in scoring defense at 60.2 points allowed per game.

Tusculum has not lost back-to-back games all season, and the Pioneers are 9-0 in games played on a Wednesday, 13-0 in night games, 13-1 when outrebounding their opponents and 13-0 when outshooting the opposition. The Pioneers' 16 SAC victories are the most in a season in program history, and their 21 regular-season wins are the most since winning 23 regular-season games in 2008-09.

WINGATE PREVIEW
Wingate's 11 conference losses are its most since going 7-11 during the 2012-13 season, but the Bulldogs have the momentum of back-to-back wins for the first time since ending December with five consecutive victories. Wingate went 3-8 on the road during conference play, winning its first (95-89 at Carson-Newman on Nov. 30) and last games (56-44 at Queens on Feb. 26) but going just 1-8 in-between (54-44 at Lenoir-Rhyne on Feb. 1.).

Freshman guard Hannah Clark finished the regular season as the Bulldogs' leading scorer at 11.4 points per game. She finished with a team-high 16 points in Saturday's win over the Pioneers, and led the team in the regular season with 52 three-pointers.

Junior forward Teliyah Jeter averages 11.0 points per game and is fourth in the SAC in rebounding at 9.9 points per game. Jeter is a SAC Defensive Player of the Year candidate, having finished with 103 blocked shots in 29 games (3.55 per game), and carries a streak of nine straight games with three blocks or more into the postseason.

Freshman forward Bryanna Troutman missed six games in January, including the Bulldogs' loss at Tusculum, but has returned and averages 8.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game. Fellow freshman forward Destiny Coleman was out for five games in February but has returned, and is averaging 9.9 points per game with 13 games in double figures out of 24.

Wingate is second in the SAC in scoring defense at 59.2 points per game, and ranks third in rebound margin at plus-4.5 per contest. The Bulldogs are fourth in the SAC in field goal percentage (39.3 percent) and three-point percentage (31.8 percent), but are next to last in three-pointers made and attempted per game. The Bulldogs also commit a SAC-high 20 turnovers per game and shoot 61.8 percent at the foul line to rank ahead of only Coker.

HISTORY
Wingate leads the all-time series with Tusculum by a 34-13 margin, which includes five straight victories at home. Tusculum has scored exactly 47 points in each of its last three losses to Wingate, shooting under 30 percent from the field in each game. The Pioneers have not beaten the Bulldogs twice in the same season since sweeping their two regular-season meetings in 2015-16. Wingate is 13-7 all-time at Pioneer Arena, with five of its losses in a span of six trips from 2008 through 2012.

TOURNAMENT PREVIEW
The winner of the Tusculum/Wingate game will face the winner of the quarterfinal meeting between second-seeded Carson-Newman and seventh-seeded Lenoir-Rhyne in the semifinals on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The Eagles were 17-5 in the league and grabbed the second seed when Tusculum lost at Wingate on Saturday. Lenoir-Rhyne was 9-13 in conference play, but earned the seventh seed over Lincoln Memorial based on a sweep of the season series.

In the other half of the bracket, Anderson went 19-3 in conference play and earned the top seed in the tournament for the second straight year and the fifth time in the last eight seasons. The Trojans will host eighth-seeded Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The winner of that game will play at noon Saturday against either fourth-seeded Newberry or fifth-seeded Catawba. Newberry was elevated to the four seed after Catawba was forced to nullify eight games due to a violation of NCAA and SAC bylaws. The Wolves were 13-9 in conference action while the Indians went 17-5 on the court, but had their win percentage adjusted from .773 to .589 and dropped behind Newberry.