Clayton State women’s basketball will play nine games against teams in last year’s field as part of their 28-game 2018-19 schedule.
Those nine games will come against six teams from the 2018 NCAA Tournament and will begin immediately as they host Anderson (20-11) and Wingate (26-6) as part of the SAC/PBC Challenge. That tournament will be held at The Loch from November 9-10 and will also include Georgia College taking on those same teams.
Last season Anderson played in the first round of the NCAA Tournament while Wingate reached the Southeast Region Semifinals and finished with a No. 19 national ranking. The Lakers will see the Trojans on the first day of the Challenge and the Bulldogs on the final day.
Clayton State will close out their season opening three game homestand on November 15th when they host Tusculum (16-11) before facing their toughest challenge of the season five days later.
That day they will travel to Carson-Newman (32-3) to face the 2018 Southeast Region Champion and Elite Eight qualifier on November 20th. It will be a meeting with the team that rounded out last season with the No. 5 national ranking.
Staying on the road, the Lakers will make a trip to Rome, Georgia to take on Shorter (7-19) on November 27th before heading to St. Augustine, Florida on December 1st for their Peach Belt Conference opener against Flagler (18-9). The latter will be a matchup of two of the tallest players in the league with FC’s 6-5 Tabitha Odabe and Clayton State’s 6-3 Shaquoria Miles.
Following a 16-day break from competition to accommodate finals, the Lakers will close the 2018 portion of the schedule with three home games. Those will kick off with a December 17th contest against USC Aiken (8-20) before PBC Tournament Runner-Up and NCAA Southeast Region semifinalist Lander (25-8) visits The Loch.
Lincoln Memorial (18-12) will then come to town for a special 2 p.m. tip-off on December 31st. Five days later will bring with it the full PBC schedule with games at Augusta (4-22) and Young Harris (9-20) on January 5th and 9th before a brief two game homestand.
The latter will include Francis Marion (16-12) on January 12th and Georgia College (18-12) four days later. From there they will begin their return trips through the league as they head to USCA and Lander on January 19th and 21st.
A four game set in the span of about 10 days will then see them matched up with the last of their opening games in season series. That will kick off at a North Georgia (29-5) squad on January 23rd which is coming off of a Southeast Region Final appearance and a sweep of the PBC Regular Season and Tournament titles. They also came in at No. 23 in the final national rankings.
Another brief two game homestand will bring UNC Pembroke (10-17) and Georgia Southwestern (8-18) to The Loch on January 26th and 30th. On February 2nd Clayton State will travel to arch rival Columbus State (19-10) to face a team that qualified for the NCAA Tournament, losing in the first round.
Four days later will see a quick swing back to Morrow to take on Young Harris before heading to Francis Marion (Feb. 9) and Georgia College (Feb. 13). From there, they will return home for three straight and four of their next six.
That three game home set begins on Homecoming with Flagler (Feb. 16) and continues with Augusta (Feb. 18) before concluding with North Georgia (Feb. 20). One of the Lakers’ longest trips, out to Pembroke, North Carolina and UNCP on February 23rd, follows along with a short hop down to Georgia Southwestern four days later.
Senior Day this year will fall on Saturday, March 2nd and feature the rival from just down the road, Columbus State. Following the close of the regular season, PBC Quarterfinal action will be hosted by the higher seed, this year on Tuesday, March 5th.
As was the case last year, the tournament’s highest remaining seed after that round will host the women’s basketball Final Four. The dates for the semifinals are Saturday, March 9th and the championship will be on Sunday, March 10th.
The league champion will then advance to the 2019 NCAA Division II Tournament, with Southeast Regional action being contested from March 15-18 at the highest regionally ranked program that submitted a bid to host. The Southeast Region Champion will then advance to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in Columbus, Ohio from March 26-29.
