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Laura Hall
All eyes, as usual, will be on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this week during the Southern Conference tournament. The Lady Mocs have won six of the past seven tournaments and are the favorite to do so again this year after going undefeated in conference play.
“Chattanooga is the team to beat,” Georgia Southern coach Rusty Cram said. “They’re on top, and you’ve got to knock them off.”
But, as Cram points out, the team to beat sometimes does get beat.
“Chattanooga saw that a few years ago against (East Tennessee State),” Cram said.
That loss happened in the quarterfinals of the 2005 SoCon tournament at UTC’s McClellan Gym. ETSU’s 55-50 win was a stunning defeat for the Lady Mocs, who — like this season — were the dominant team in the conference.
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Staff Photo by Angela Lewis-- Laura Hall and her UTC teammates will be considered the favorites as the Southern Conference tournament begins today in Charleston, S.C.
A freshman starter that season, Laura Hall remembers the upset, too; it’s the only SoCon tournament game she’s ever lost.
“Seriously, there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about it,” UTC’s senior point guard said.
The Lady Mocs (26-3) will try to avoid another SoCon tourney letdown on Friday at the North Charleston Coliseum, when they will face either Appalachian State (8-21) or UNC Greensboro (6-23) in the quarterfinals.
“Remembering what happened our freshman year against ETSU, that’s kind of got me on edge,” senior guard Brooke Hand said. “We’ve really been practicing hard these last couple of days and hopefully we’ll be more ready than ever.”
The Lady Mocs went 18-0 in SoCon play this season, for the second time in three years, and had little trouble sweeping both the Mountaineers and the Spartans. In fact, with the exception of its two games against Western Carolina, UTC won all of its conference games by at least 10 points.
Those wins won’t help UTC now, coach Wes Moore said, and when he looks at the tournament bracket, all he sees is trouble.
“We’re in a very athletic bracket,” Moore said. “Appalachian State and Greensboro, they’re both very athletic and explosive teams that have given us good games. Also in our bracket are Georgia Southern and the College of Charleston, so I guess the good thing about it is we can kind of get in a mode where we’re preparing for quickness and speed.”
Should UTC get through to the semifinals, either Georgia Southern (17-12) or the College of Charleston (13-15) awaits on Sunday. The Eagles, the No. 4 seed, easily swept the Cougars in the regular season and feature yet another athletic, aggressive lineup that could give UTC problems.
The Lady Mocs won their regular-season games by 14 and 19 points, respectively.
Western Carolina swept UTC in the regular season a year ago but was hammered, 84-66, by the Lady Mocs in the tournament final. The Lady Mocs have won a pair of tight games against the Catamounts this season — 86-81 on Dec. 20 and 72-66 in the season-finale last Thursday — and there’s little doubt that the Catamounts, the No. 2 seed, would like nothing more than to return the favor in Monday’s tournament final.
That’s nothing new for the Lady Mocs, though. Playing at UTC means learning to play with a large target on your back.
“That’s how it’s been ever since I’ve been here,” Hall said. “It’s fun to a certain extent, but it’s going to be aggressive and intense (during the tournament), for sure.”
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 ...
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