KNOXVILLE - As the deficit against Tennessee kept growing Friday night - as his team's jump shots kept falling shorter and shorter of their intended target, you could almost hear University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach John Shulman muttering, "Thanks, Indianapolis. Thanks a lot."
Maybe it wouldn't have ultimately made much difference in this eventual 82-62 Big Orange victory over its little brother team.
You miss 37 of 55 field-goal tries overall and 25 of 34 3-pointers and the other guy doesn't really have to do much right to leave you on the wrong side of the score.
Especially when Shulman felt like all those early misses zapped his team's will to play defense.
Or at least to play it the way the University of Indianapolis had inside this same Thompson-Boling Arena four nights earlier, when the Division II school went home to Hoosier land with a 69-54 shocker over the nation's No. 23 team.
"It's come down to this in 2010," Shulman said of the upset that wasn't. "It used to be defend, defend, defend, even if you were not making shots. It is not like that anymore. It's sad, but that ball has to go in for you to have any energy to keep guarding and defending on the other end."
And he had a point. It's not like Tennessee was flawless. A program built by Bruce Pearl around the 3-pointer hit only 5 of 20 long shots against the Mocs. A team with a noticeable size advantage inside shot only 44 percent overall for the game and blocked only two shots, same as UTC.
But thanks in part to an early morning video session that Pearl called for the morning after the Vols took a nap against the 'Nap, thanks more to their own embarrassment over a defeat plastered across ESPN, the Big Orange were ready for a big comeback to superiority.
"We might not have come out with the same focus if we'd beaten Indianapolis," said junior guard Cameron Tatum, who scored 11 for the winners. "Instead, I thought we came out with tremendous focus from start to finish."
They certainly came out with some tremendous shots from the start. Scotty Hopson banked home a 3-pointer to stop any bad karma left in the building from the exhibition loss.
"Any time you hit one of those it's got to make you feel good," said UT point guard Melvin Goins.
Then stunning freshman Tobias Harris drilled a second triple, then two runners to complete a seven-point blitz.
"Harris is the real deal," Shulman said. "He reminds me of a less athletic Bernard King. He's got that quick shot, lots of runners. He has a unique game."
And so "what might have been" swiftly became a "never would." Paradise was lost before it was found. This would now become a gut check for the Vols and a tummy ache for the Mocs.
Even worse, the home team - the parent team, if you will - couldn't even remember its child's name.
With 6:18 remaining in the opening half, UTC already down by double figures, the arena's public address announcer proclaimed, "Timeout, Moccasins."
Not "Mocs," the proper nickname for the men in gold and blue. "Moccasins."
So there wasn't just no chance for UTC. There was also no respect. Oh, the things you'll endure in major college athletics today for a healthy payday.
But even in this toughest of opening defeats, Shulman found a ray of hope for the visitors.
"The last time we came in here we lost by 40 (actually 39) and ended up going to the NCAA tournament," he said. "We'll get better."
And the Mocs will. What will happen to that Moccasins team is less certain, however.