The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team has won 28 straight games against Wofford. But the Terriers the Lady Mocs will face tonight at McKenzie Arena aren't the pushovers of years past.
"They just came off a really big win against Davidson the other night, so we've got to be ready," Lady Mocs guard Kayla Christopher said.
The Terriers pulled off one of the best SoCon wins of the season Monday. Wofford closed the game on a 15-2 run during the final 5:15 to knock off Davidson 63-59, handing the Wildcats their first Southern Conference loss after a 5-0 start.
"We played really hard, we got defensive stops when we had to and I'm really proud of our team holding a great team like Davidson to two points over those last few minutes," Wofford coach Edgar Farmer said. "Good things tend to happen when you play hard."
Wofford's last win over the Lady Mocs came in the 1998-99 regular-season finale, during coach Wes Moore's first season at UTC. Until recently, 20-point margins weren't uncommon when UTC (10-4, 5-0) took on the Terriers (9-5, 2-3). However, three of the past four games have been decided by 10 points or less.
Wofford led UTC by 18 points in the first half of last season's first meeting, before UTC rallied to win 93-88 behind a career-high 40 points from Whitney Hood.
"I'm a firm believer that what happens in the past doesn't predict what happens in the future," Farmer said. "We did do some good things last year, but this team is completely different. I feel like it started with us in the preseason, with our conditioning and coming together as a basketball team."
The Terriers opened their season with six straight wins before hitting a rough patch that including SoCon losses to the College of Charleston, Elon and Georgia Southern.
The up and down play makes Wofford hard to read. For Charleston and Georgia Southern, their wins over Wofford are their only league wins, yet the Terriers stunned Davidson on Monday.
UTC hosts Furman (9-6, 5-1) on Sunday and then hosts Samford on Jan. 18, before visiting defending SoCon champion Appalachian State and Davidson -- a trio of games against teams with a combined 13-3 record in the SoCon this season.
"We know it's a big weekend with them and Furman coming in, and from here on out they're all big," Christopher said. "It seems that [the SoCon is] very competitive this year, so we know we've got to take care of our business."