It's been an exciting week for University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior Destiny Bramblett.
On Monday, she found out that her basketball team had been ranked No. 25 in The Associated Press women's Top 25 when teammates Ka'Vonne Towns and Jasmine Joyner began yelling excitedly in their apartment. Her reaction was the same as many basketball fans throughout the Scenic City.
"All I could say was 'Finally,'" she recalled Thursday before a practice in preparation for today's 3 p.m. Southern Conference home game against Mercer.
UTC (18-3, 6-0) quickly got back to work after learning of the program's first national ranking in more than 30 years. The Mocs won 49-32 over Samford on Monday night, holding the Bulldogs to 12 points in the second half, and coach Jim Foster said his team has been all business preparing for today's doubleheader opener.
The UTC men will host The Citadel at 6 p.m.
"I would be hard pressed to tell you if they've spent any time thinking about (the ranking), having been with them," Foster said. "We had a good practice yesterday morning, and everything seemed as it should."
The Mocs need to continue ignoring the hype and stay focused heading into a pair of games against teams that are new to the Southern Conference this season. After hosting the Bears (11-10, 6-2), UTC will travel to Johnson City, Tenn., on Sunday for an 11 a.m. game Monday against East Tennessee State.
"I just know that since Mercer came into the conference their record is pretty good," Bramblett said. "Even the games they lost, they were down just a few points. And when we played ETSU as a nonconference game (last season), it was a really good game, so I know they're capable of doing successful things.
"We're just going to have to continue to work hard during practice, and do what we know we can do."
Mercer's primary weapon is 5-foot-6 guard Precious Bridges, who is leading the SoCon in scoring with 20.8 points per game. Kahlia Lawrence and Alicia Williams also are averaging double figures in scoring, and 6-5 center Teanna Robinson can cause opponents trouble in the post.
"They've got a big kid in the middle and some very capable guards that are good off the bounce," said Foster, who compared the Bears to Arkansas State, which was the last team to beat the Mocs before their 14-game winning streak. "They're an old-fashioned team that shoots a lot of mid-range jumpers and don't shoot a lot of 3s."
For Foster, now in his second season at UTC, every SoCon opponent is relatively new, and he's not concerned about the Mocs' lack of familiarity with new schools in the league after a challenging nonconference schedule and six league games.
"With the schedule we have and who we play and where we play, there's not too much new to us this time of year," he said. "Every team's style is like somebody else's, and every venue is like somebody else's. So we're at the stage where we're just sort of motoring along."
Bramblett knows that the prestige of being a ranked team means the Mocs can expect the best shot from every opponent, and today's game against Mercer will be no exception.
"Coach Foster was talking after the Samford game that (Mercer) hasn't seen us and they don't know much about us," she said. "But now that we're ranked we have made a target for them.
"We are the target for them."
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.