Division decision

ELON, N.C. — The seniors and captains huddled around John Shulman after practice Friday in the 1,558-seat Alumni Gym.

The coach spoke in a soft voice. He asked the five players for their help, counsel and suggestions for the 30 hours leading up to the division-deciding game tonight at Elon.

“It’s easy to play when you’re an underdog,” the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach said. “It’s not so easy when you have a target on your back because you want to win a championship.”

UTC failed to seize on an opportunity to win the Southern Conference North Division on Thursday.

The Mocs could have locked up the No. 2 seed in the upcoming SoCon tournament, added a 2008 stitch to the division championship banner in McKenzie Arena and earned a ring.

All of that is on hold.

A victory tonight against the feisty Phoenix would accomplish the same goals.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves last night saying, ‘We have to win,’” junior Kevin Goffney said. “Now we have to just go out and play.”

Pressure took its toll on the Mocs against the Spartans on Thursday. UTC lost bad, ugly, weakly, 87-64, at UNC Greensboro with 28 turnovers. Spartans fans showed up to celebrate Kyle Hines, who had his jersey retired in a pregame ceremony.

The game wound up as the side show compared to emotional speeches by Hines, athletic director Nelson Bobb and other UNCG heroes before the game. The Mocs (17-12, 12-7) succumbed to the circumstances.

“We ran from pressure,” Shulman said before Friday’s practice. “We didn’t step up and face it like a man. Everybody on the team knew the tradition of Chattanooga basketball when we brought them in. When it was time to play for a banner, we played like a bunch of scared little children.”

Shulman appeared to be deathly afraid of tonight’s game before practice and upgraded his emotional status to concerned afterward.

“It’s always a plus-5 or minus-5 game with five minutes to play against them, and if you add that with pressure.” Shulman said before the 50-minute workout in Alumni Gym. “At this moment, before practice and meeting, we’ll have a very difficult time beating Elon.

“If we don’t change our mentality, we can’t beat them.”

Which led to the post-practice huddle. Shulman and captain Zach Ferrell discussed the game this season against Tennessee and the NCAA tournament game against Wake Forest in 2005. Those were games in which the Mocs played with passion, unselfishness and camaraderie and exposed their hearts.

A similar effort is necessary tonight.

“We went out there and laid an egg against Greensboro,” Shulman said. “Either you face facts or pretend like you have an injury if you’re scared. You don’t have to tell me you’re scared, just fake an injury.

“We need to have warriors playing against Elon.”

It’s no longer a cliché: Tonight’s game is the most important game of the season.

If UTC wins, it gets the No. 2 seed because it would have swept games against Elon — the highest seeded team against which UTC and Appalachian State have different records. ASU splits its two contests with the Phoenix.

If UTC loses, it could wind up as the No. 2, 3, 4 or 5 seed based on other SoCon games today involving ASU and Georgia Southern and the UNCG-Western Carolina game Monday.

“We could have took care of business — we should have took care of business — but it wasn’t there for us,” UTC captain Nicchaeus Doaks said. “Hopefully we’ll take care of business against Elon and get that No. 2 seed.”

A bid to the National Invitation Tournament may not be on the line for the North Division winner. The NIT provides an automatic bid only for the conference regular-season champion (Davidson) if it is not part of the NCAA tournament.

“We’re going to worry about Elon and not worry about a championship,” Mocs senior Kevin Bridgewaters said. “A championship will come if we beat Elon.”