There have been a few times this season that Clark Atlanta University Lady Panthers basketball coach – and former WNBA champion – Yolanda Moore and her assistant, Antonio Bailey, have had to lace up their sneakers and hit the practice floor with their team.

That's what happens when much of the season your team only has nine healthy players.

But that, like everything else, has not been a deterrent for the 17-8 Lady Panthers as they get ready for their first game in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women's Tournament Wednesday, when they take on Miles College at 1 p.m. CST at Bill Harris Arena in the Birmingham Crossplex.

The Lady Panthers are the East Division champions and No. 1 seed with a 14-3 conference record, despite a short bench. But the obstacles that have come along the way, and even the gaudy record, doesn't matter now, Moore said.

"I told my team that it's a new season," said Moore, the 2018 SIAC Women's Coach of the Year. "Everybody is 0-0. It's anybody's time.  If we want to move forward and continue to play in the postseason, we have to be ready, like it's the beginning of the year."

They take on a Miles team that is 9-20 this season, 5-13 in the SIAC, but shot 50 percent from the 3-point line in defeating Fort Valley State 66-45 in the tournament's opening round.  CAU defeated Miles twice this season, 53-49 on the road in late November, and 61-45 at home two weeks ago.

"I don't take anybody lightly," Moore said.  "It's hard to be beat a team three times in a season. So, we are prepared like it's the first time we've faced them. We know what they like to do. We are going to be prepared. At this point in the season, a lot of coaches like to throw wrinkles with their offenses or do something different with their defenses, so we are prepared for that."

The Lady Panthers have three All-SIAC players in first-team pick Marissa Mandeldove and second-team choices Lauren Turner and Naomi Holloway.  Holloway, the SIAC's Freshman and Newcomer of the Year, leads the team in scoring with 16.1 points per game, fourth in the SIAC.  Turner is the conference's leading rebounder and averages 13.1 points per game, while Mandeldove leads the SIAC in assists and steals while still averaging 12.6 points per game.

CAU is the only team in the conference to rank among the top four teams in scoring offense (4^th - 66.6 per game) and scoring defense (4^th – 62.8 ppg).

"We aren't taking this lightly," she said.  "We don't feel like we've done anything. Yeah, we won the East Division.  That's great.  But now this is what counts.  If we want to make the NCAA tournament – like all of these teams do – we've got to take it up a notch.  We've just got to be smart about how we practice and our approach.  We've had to do some different things because we are limited. We are short-handed on the bench. We don't have but nine players.  And so, we have to practice and play smart and be a lot more disciplined than we have during the season."

The winner of Wednesday's game heads to Friday's 1 p.m. semifinal game to take on the winner of Thursday's LeMoyne-Owen-Claflin game.

Wednesday's Miles-Clark Atlanta game will be streamed live on HBCU Gameday, via their YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDjSlP1EwIk&feature=youtu.be or via HBCU Gameday's Amazon Fire TV app.