On Dec. 4, Georgia Southern went to Chattanooga, Tenn. for a Southern Conference game against the Lady Mocs.

Exactly two weeks later, UTC is coming to Hanner Fieldhouse for a quick rematch.

The Dec. 4 game, originally scheduled to take place after the new year, was moved to the beginning of the SoCon schedule to accommodate television.

"On the women’s side, you only get a couple of opportunities for our whole conference," GSU coach Rusty Cram said about televised games. "I think we only get two or three TV games a year, so when they called us about moving that game to December, that’s why we did it."

A lot has happened since GSU’s 87-80 loss at Chattanooga, the biggest of which is the return of senior point guard Jamie Navarro, who sat out twice with an injury.

The biggest piece of the missing puzzle so far for the Eagles (2-8, 0-2 SoCon) has been post play, where Candice Ivy is the only returning upper classman. Freshmen Danielle Spencer and Aishya Wofford haven’t caught up to the college game yet.

"I’ve still got to push and believe it’s going to happen at some point," said Cram, "but until we get to that point we’ll have to continue playing with five guards."

Krista Tate and Meredyth Frye, both guards, lead the team in rebounding with 5.2 each per game.

After a Nov. 16 win in the home-opener against Mercer, GSU lost seven-straight games, six of which were on the road. They got back in the win column Tuesday, defeating Stetson, 54-49 on the road.

"Somebody said we got a monkey off our back," said Cram. "That wasn’t a monkey, it was a 400-pound ape. After seven games, that was a big one to get off our back, and the kids can relax a little bit now and quit worrying about that, and just continue to get better."

Today’s game against UTC (3-6, 1-1) will be the conference home opener for the Eagles.

"In our conference, you have to take care of your home court," said Cram. "If you don’t, you don’t have a prayer. That’s what we’re working on. It’s a home game, and they took care of business at their place, and we’re going to have to do the same thing at our place if we want to compete in the second half. We’re only two games into the conference, and that’s the way we’ve got to look at it."

Tipoff takes place at noon.