Sergio Guerra, Sports Editor/Photographer

UNCG Basketball has had a couple of losses this snowy weekend in Southern Conference action. The UNCG Women’s Basketball team was in action at home on January 22 against Chattanooga and Saturday morning against ETSU in preparation of snow. The Spartans dropped both games, stretching their current losing streak to 4 and snapping an unbeaten run in Bodford Arena (formerly Fleming Gym) that has been active since the 2023-24 season. Meanwhile, UNCG Men’s Basketball was looking to build on a 85-78 win over VMI on January 21, returning home to face the Furman Paladins on Friday, January 23.

Women’s Basketball Unbeaten Home Streak Ends

The UNCG Women’s Basketball team has been a commanding force in the Southern Conference, winning the championship last season and earning an automatic berth into the NCAA’s March Madness tournament. Even more frightening was the team’s home performances, with the Spartans on an unbeaten home stretch – their last loss on January 25, 2024, coming at the hands of Chattanooga. After going unbeaten at home for the entirety of the 2024-25 season, it is almost poetic that UNCG’s streak was broken by Chattanooga on January 22, 2026 in a 52-40 loss.

On Thursday night, Chattanooga came out strong and outscored the Spartans 17-8 in the first quarter. Chattanooga ended the first half with a 10-point lead over the hosts. However, the Spartans would answer in the third quarter, tying the match after holding Chattanooga to just six points and scoring 16 of their own. UNCG looked poised to hang on to its unbeaten home streak, but Chattanooga held UNCG to just five points in the entire fourth quarter and taking a 52-40 win out of Bodford Arena.

Makiah Asidanya led the Spartans in the losing effort with a team-high 14 points. She also had the second-highest rebounds with 5. Meanwhile, Jeni Levine also made it into double figures with 11 points and tacked on 6 boards. It was not enough as the Spartans just didn’t have the efficiency to win the match, going 15-61 (24.6%) from the field and 3-21 (14.3%) from three. The Spartans’ most recent win, which was against Mercer, showcased better efficiency and saw them go 26-52 (50%) from the field and 11-21 (52.4%) from beyond the arc.

The second match of the weekend was on Saturday, January 24 and resulted in a 58-48 loss to ETSU in Bodford Arena. This is UNCG Women’s Basketball second straight home loss since the 2022-2023 season. More specifically, since February 2 and 4, 2023 against Samford and Mercer respectively.

In the loss against ETSU, Jeni Levine led the Spartans in scoring – reaching 20 points and adding on five rebounds, three assists, and three steals. However, UNCG gave up 14 second chance points and allowed ETSU to score 22 points in the paint. Meanwhile, the Spartans struggled on this front, scoring only 12 points in the paint and only earning four second chance points.

Women’s Basketball will have a chance to bounce back at home against the Western Carolina Catamounts on Sunday, February 1 at 2:00 pm.

UNCG Men’s Basketball’s Mixed Season

The UNCG Men’s Basketball season has had ups and downs as it currently sits with an 8-13 overall record but has shown a lot of improvement within conference play where it holds a 4-4 record.

Most recently, UNCG suffered an 89-66 blowout loss to the Furman Paladins on Friday, January 23. Justin Neely led both ends of the court, putting up team-highs 20 points and 9 rebounds, tacking on two assists as well. KJ Younger and Valentino Pinedo also reached double figure point tallies with 17 and 10 respectively.

The Spartans struggled from beyond the arc, going just 7-26 (26.9%) while Furman went 14-27 from the three-point line.

The result puts the Spartans at 4-4 in the Southern Conference and as the fifth seed in the conference standings. Furman improves to 5-3 and moves up to the three seed.

Up next, the Spartans travel to Macon, GA to take on the Mercer Bears in conference play on Thursday, January 29.

Images by Sergio Guerra.