UTC's Jasmine Joyner (3) and Alicia Payne (1) defend against the shot of ETSU's Destiny Mitchell (41). The East Tennessee State University Bucs visited the UTC Mocs in a Southern Conference Basketball game in McKenzie Arena on Saturday. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga moved up one spot to No. 17 in the Associated Press women's basketball Top 25 poll released Monday afternoon.
Before this season the Mocs' highest ranking was No. 19, which they held for three weeks in 1984. This is the sixth consecutive week they have been ranked by the AP.
The process is still new to the team. Senior Ka'Vonne Towns and junior guard Alicia Payne weren't even sure when the polls came out. They had no idea they had moved up to the program's highest-ever ranking, finding out Monday at a media event.
"It is kind of exciting," Towns said, "because we've never been ranked before, but I don't think we focus on it. We still have to perform."
The Mocs (26-3, 14-0 SoCon) received 290 points -- up from 246 in last week's poll -- and jumped ahead of Texas A&M. UTC is now ranked two spots higher than Stanford, which lost to the Mocs in mid-December when the Cardinal were ranked No. 7.
UTC wrapped up a second straight undefeated run through the Southern Conference regular season with a 64-42 win over second-place East Tennessee State on Saturday. The Mocs will begin postseason play Thursday at noon against UNC Greensboro at the SoCon tournament in Asheville, N.C.
Joyner honored
UTC sophomore post player Jasmine Joyner was announced Monday as the SoCon player of the week.
Saturday against ETSU, the Southaven, Miss., resident scored 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and pulled down 14 rebounds. Joyner has a UTC and SoCon record 118 blocked shots this season and has averaged 4.1 blocks per game.
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.