UTC's Ricky Taylor (22) gets fouled by Ga Southern's Zuri James (12) on Thursday. The Mocs won over the Eagles with a final score of 75-66.A concerning trend continued.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team let a sizable lead vanish for the third straight game Thursday night before pulling out a 75-66 Southern Conference win over Georgia Southern in McKenzie Arena.
"Blow a 20-point lead, blow a 17-point lead, blow an 18-point lead, but win, win, and win," Mocs coach John Shulman said. "That's a good theme.
"I think us not being able to guard how we need to guard will come back and bite us sometime."
UTC led 52-34 with more than 15 minutes to play. Five minutes later, the Eagles - who have not won a Southern Conference game - were within two points. And they were within three points twice in the final three minutes.
"They shot 55 percent from the floor, 50 percent from the 3-point line, and I don't want to sweep that under the rug because we won," Shulman said. "We don't ever apologize for winning, but we have to get better."
Omar Wattad and Ricky Taylor led UTC (14-10, 10-2) with 19 points each. Chris Early scored 13 and Keegan Bell had 12 points and nine assists for the Mocs, who hit 12 of 19 3-pointers.
"We love winning, but deep down we feel like we can beat a team by a lot more points," said Taylor, who hit all four of his 3-point attempts. "When you give yourself a big lead, you give yourself space to mess up and make errors. But that's not good in the long run if we're not making shots or making free throws. Then it's going to bite us."
Ben Drayton led GSU, the youngest team in the SoCon with four freshmen and two sophomores in the rotation, with 24 points. Eric Ferguson had 10 points, including a 3-pointer that pulled GSU (4-20, 0-11) within 69-66 with 1:29 to go.
"Our young kids are resilient," said GSU coach Charlton Young, a former UTC associate head coach. "Some kids are a legend in their own mind. They still feel like they're great even though they're 0-11."
Shulman tried to prevent another letdown early in the second half. GSU hit a 3-pointer and Bell committed a turnover with UTC up by 15 with 15:10 to play when Shulman called a 30-second timeout and huddled the team around him.
"Let's wake up now," Shulman recalled. "Let's don't wait."
But a 21-5 run had the Eagles back in the game, down 57-55 with 10:19 to go.
"I think at times, because we're much older, we can get relaxed and complacent," said senior DeAntre Jefferson, whose team is 11-1 in games within five points with five minutes to play. "We know we have the game, and we get too complacent with ourselves.
"It can bite us in the end."