Walking through the McKenzie Arena hallways after the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s 72-64 win over Bellarmine, a UTC administrator said, “that was a better win than Louisville.”
It was certainly a tougher one than the Mocs’ nine-point win over the Cardinals on Friday, which was worse than the final score indicated. On Tuesday it was a 13-0 run over the final 3:53 that helped the Mocs pull away from the Knights, who had lost to Washington and Kansas State prior to their latest defeat.
UTC’s win happened in part due to that final stretch, which was jumpstarted by an Honor Huff steal and layup and aided by a huge Myles Che 3-pointer with 1:07 remaining and the Mocs holding onto a 65-64 lead.
It was the second straight game that Che had a better second half than first. Against the Cardinals, he had 18 of his career-high 22 points in the final 20 minutes and on Tuesday 10 of his 14 points came in the second half, none bigger than that final shot.
With the final seconds of the game ticking down, Che let the ball bounce in front of him, stared at the crowd and let out a loud, “Let’s Go!”
“I think tonight shows a lot of trust with my teammates,” he said. “I feel like they trust me with the ball at the end of games to make a shot like that, but today was just my day. It could have been anybody else taking that shot. My teammates played a great game today, the coaches did a good job.”
Huff led the Mocs with 16 points and four assists. Sam Alexis and Che added 14 each, with Alexis and Randy Brady’s nine rebounds pacing the Mocs’ 39-22 edge in that category.
It was Alexis’s rebound and putback with 1:55 remaining that gave UTC the lead for good.
“The coaches were telling me this summer I was going to have a big role this year,” said Alexis, who is averaging 13 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks per game so far. “Last year I wasn’t playing as much, so it felt good to be out there with the crowd cheering and stuff like that.”
The Mocs were limited to an eight-player rotation with the absence of guard Rudy Fitzgibbons due to illness, and got some necessary contributions from all over the court.
“This is a big win, especially if we can learn from it,” UTC head coach Dan Earl said. “I’m trying to balance wanting us to get better, quicker. But in college basketball, it’s not like you have the same team year after year, and we have a lot of new faces. But I do think it was a good win over a very good basketball team, so if we’re willing to learn from it and make strides going in the right direction, I think this could be a very good win as we roll forward.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.