Chattanooga forward Casey Jones (24) blocks a shot from Kennesaw State forward Nigel Pruitt (1) at Kennesaw State University's Convocation Center, in Kennesaw, Ga., on Saturday, Nov. 29.The good has been pretty good so far for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team. At the same time, the bad has, at times, been pretty bad.
The Mocs experienced both Saturday in their 77-69 loss at Kennesaw State University at the KSU Convocation Center. During a six-minute stretch in the first half, the visitors defended, rebounded and played like the better team. Quick outlets off rebounds and a wall around the paint slowed down the Owls' penetration into the lane, which had been its primary advantage so far. The Mocs went on a 20-6 run, taking a two-point lead with less than a minute to go in the half.
During that span, the Owls were 2-for-9 from the field. But prior to that, UTC had suffered through a dry spell of 6:06 without a basket, which had allowed the Owls to stretch their lead to 18-6.
The second half was more of the same. Kennesaw started the half with a 12-1 run, and added a 13-1 spurt midway through the half. The Mocs had a span of 4:10 without a basket, and another 3:42. The droughts allowed the Owls to build as much as a 16-point lead, one they would not relinquish despite a late run by the Mocs that cut the lead to nine on a Chuck Ester dunk with 1:21 to go.
Yonel Brown was a catalyst and a thorn in the Mocs' side all night, as the 5-foot-9 guard had a career-high 32 points, to go along with three assists and three steals.
"Kennesaw State did a really good job," junior forward Casey Jones said. "They really cut our momentum. We thought we had something going every time, but they came back every time. Brown got to the basket a lot and really killed our momentum; all of the fouling and letting him get past us a lot came back to get us, and we couldn't quite close it in the end.
"It was very disappointing."
The Mocs (3-4) looked to have turned a corner, having claimed wins over solid mid-major programs Robert Morris and Coastal Carolina during the Thanksgiving break. The solid defense that they showed in spurts Saturday, they showed in the majority of those games in the two games prior. Even in the first half against Kennesaw, they only allowed 26 points and had battled back to be tied at the break. But the Mocs gave up 51 points in the final 20 minutes, with 24 of those coming at the free-throw line.
"We had it tied at halftime. We were lucky to be tied at that point as poorly as we were playing," UTC head coach Will Wade said. "We let it get out of hand in the second half. We went under ball screens and gave up 3s. We couldn't rebound the ball; it was a total system breakdown."
The Mocs had tacked two fouls on 6-foot-10 Kennesaw big man Willy Kouassi by the 17:29 mark of the first half. Orlando Coleman had four fouls less than four minutes into the second half, with Kouassi picking up his third trying to block a Casey Jones dunk attempt at 14:21 remaining in the game. Even without the Owls' biggest shot-blocking threat able to take chances inside, the Mocs weren't efficient scoring, shooting at a 36 percent clip in the final 20 minutes and 39 percent for the game.
"We didn't finish simple plays," Wade said. "We had simple plays at the rim and couldn't finish them for whatever reason. We were out-classed in every way. We gave up 51 second-half points; that's embarrassing."
The good news is that the Mocs return home Tuesday, where they are 3-0 on the season with an average margin of victory of 27.7 points. The flip side is that Southeastern Conference member Georgia is the competition coming to McKenzie. The Bulldogs, selected fifth in the SEC preseason poll, are 3-3 on the season and will be looking for their first victory away from Stegeman Coliseum. They'll be led by preseason all-SEC second-team member Charles Mann, who is averaging 11.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. Six-foot-8 forward Marcus Thornton averages team highs of 13.2 points and 7.5 rebounds a contest.
Wade wasn't thinking about the team's next opponent on Saturday, though.
"If we can't compete with Kennesaw State, my goodness," he said. "We better start worrying about ourselves before we start worrying about Georgia."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.