Audio clip
Laura Hall
Laura Hall had her best driving night of the season Thursday. Her parents, on the other hand, have had better.
It’s a tradition on senior night for players to take the floor with their families during the pregame ceremony. There are hugs all around, a few hearty rounds of applause and then the game begins.
That was certainly the plan for Hall, one of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s five senior women’s basketball players. But when it was her turn to walk out before Thursday’s home finale against Western Carolina, her parents, Johnny and Janie, were nowhere near McKenzie Arena.
Instead, they were stuck in traffic on Interstate 75 because of one of the multiple construction projects under way between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Lady Mocs sports information director Anne Wehunt said they called her to see if UTC could arrange a police escort, to no avail.
“Honestly, the only reason I was crying was because my parents weren’t there,” Hall said a laugh after the Lady Mocs’ 72-66 win over the Catamounts. “That really upset me. Man, that got me.”
Junior Erin Ogan pointed out the irony of Hall’s parents missing the ceremony, because they are regulars at UTC’s home and away games.
“I felt so bad for Laura because I know she wanted her parents to be here for that,” Ogan said. “They do an incredible job supporting her and the team. They’re there wherever we play, so I couldn’t believe it when I heard they were stuck in traffic.”
The Halls, from Oliver Springs, arrived before halftime and their daughter scored a game-high 18 points in UTC’s 21st consecutive win, which completed an 18-0 run through the Southern Conference. She hit two 3-pointers, but it was her driving to the basket that was most effective.
“I was real happy to see them when I came back out on the court at halftime,” Hall said. “I could finally relax and stop worrying.”
While senior night might not have gone off without a hitch, the Lady Mocs (26-3, 18-0) are certainly on a roll heading into the postseason. They haven’t lost since Dec. 1, 67-63 at Alabama A&M, they own Division I’s longest win streak and they captured their ninth consecutive SoCon regular-season title.
The top seed in next week’s conference tournament in North Charleston, S.C., UTC will face the winner of the opening-round game between 10th-place Wofford and the seventh seed in the quarterfinals on March 7. The seventh-place finisher will be decided today with the final games of the regular season.
Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore often stresses to his team that there are seasons within seasons. First there was the nonconference season, then the SoCon season and up next is the postseason, when all 10 SoCon teams start with a clean slate and the victor gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Should the Lady Mocs win the SoCon tournament, ESPN.com and CollegeRPI.com both project that they will be a No. 12 seed in the NCAAs, and both Web sites have them playing fifth-seeded Vanderbilt in the first round. The projections can make for fun conversation and speculation, but they don’t mean much.
Once the postseason starts, neither does UTC’s unblemished record the past three months, Ogan said.
“Coach is always reminding us that you start over with each season,” Ogan said. “Everyone in our conference has a chance to win (the tournament), and we’ve got to be ready to play when the conference tournament starts.”
John Frierson is in his fifth year at the Times Free Press and fifth year covering University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletics. The bulk of his time is spent covering Mocs football, but he also writes about women’s basketball and the big-picture issues and news involving the athletic department. A native of Athens, Ga., John grew up a few hundred yards from the University of Georgia campus. Instead of becoming a Bulldog he attended Ole ...
