1 week Ago By By Tom Bone for the Daily Telegraph
ATHENS — Concord University basketball fans can watch their first game in the renovated gym of the Carter Center this evening, as the women’s hoops squad takes on UVa-Wise at 5 p.m. The main gym in Athens has undergone thousands of dollars’ worth of renovations in the offseason, with new spectator seating and an updated scoreboard awaiting tonight’s action.
“This is the first time the kids are getting to play in our new facility, and I think that’s exciting for them,” said CU head coach Tesla Southcott, who is also the institution’s co-athletics director. The CU men start their season today also, at Virginia Union University in Richmond. Their first home date is part of a doubleheader on Nov.
26. Southcott will be pitted against CU alumna Jamie Cluesman, head coach of the Cavaliers, in today’s non-conference game. Cluesman was a Concord assistant coach from 2008-14, and before that she was an all-conference point guard for the Mountain Lions.
“It’s always a good matchup,” Southcott said. “It’s always a very competitive and high-intensity game. .
.. Coach Cluesman is going to have her team super-prepared.
(She) always has her kids working extremely hard. We have to match that intensity.” The key to the outcome, Southcott suggested, will be “us making adjustments to our press, and our transition defense .
.. to slow the basketball down.
” Four of the last six games between the schools have been decided by 10 points or less. Concord (0-2) lost to Lock Haven 84-67 and to Seton Hill 120-77 last weekend in a set of road games against Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference powers. UVa-Wise (2-0) took both games in out-of-conference clashes last weekend in South Carolina.
Southcott said her team’s initial outing was “not the start we wanted, for sure, but we learned a lot about ourselves. ..
. Collectively, I liked how the kids stuck together.” “Going into this week, their unity and their accountability to each other has spoken to the type of players and the type of kids we have.
And I’m excited about that.” Concord forward Abbie Smith was named to the all-tournament team of the Pennsylvania Challenge on Saturday night. She began her junior season with 18 points and 10 rebounds against Lock Haven and had 13 points and eight boards versus Seton Hill.
In those games, Concord forced 41 turnovers, 27 of them steals. “Offensively, we want to score quick, we want to use our defense to help score,” Southcott said. “But we also have a great inside presence with post players in Abbie and imani Hickman.
We want to make sure to use them well.” Concord was 17-13 last season, reaching the Mountain East Conference tournament semifinals for the second consecutive year. The 378 steals generated by the CU defense was a program record.
Smith led the Mountain East in double-doubles last season, with 13, and was named to the all-MEC tournament team for the second straight year. Starting this spring, the 6-foot-2 Ohioan has “worked her butt off,” Southcott said. “She kind of transformed her body, a little bit, so she’s a little bit more mobile than she was last year.
” “Her inside presence opens a lot on the perimeter for us, but I think that her becoming more mobile has made her a little bit more of a threat from the perimeter.” Senior guard Skylar Davidson grabbed six steals against Seton Hill and dished out six assists versus Lock Haven. The Mullens resident started all 30 games for CU last season.
Southcott said, “Across the board, she’s a playmaker and I think we’re going to see a lot of our offense derive from how well she’s performing.” Concord added 15 newcomers to its roster for this season, 10 of them transfers. PikeView grad Cat Farmer and Bluefield High alum Cara Brown are among the four freshman guards added by the Mountain Lions.
“The newness is going to take time, with reps together, (to be productive),” Southcott said. “I think you’ll see us get gradually better, every game and every week. The kids are great kids, and they work extremely hard.
” “We have a lot of new faces. We have a lot of athleticism, a lot of quickness,” the coach said. “They love each other and they fight for one another and are very supportive of one another.
To have so many new faces, they have come together really well in the preseason.” “I just think the best is yet to come. We’re just going to have to take it day by day.
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