Tre' McLean looks to pass during UTC's home opener earlier this month against Hiwassee College.The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team had an impressive first half Friday against Alabama State, taking a 16-point lead into the locker room at the break.
The Mocs expanded on that by having a dominant second half.
They shot 74 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes, outscoring the Hornets 57-36 and cruising to a 95-58 victory in the Emerald Coast Classic semifinals at Northwest Florida State Community College in Niceville, Fla.
Four players scored in double figures for the Mocs (4-1), who face Jacksonville State (3-5) in today's championship game at 2 p.m.
Tre' McLean had career highs in scoring (18) and assists (six). He shot 7-for-9 from the field, added three steals and committed no turnovers in 30 minutes.
After the game, the 6-foot-5 junior guard said he had been challenged by Mocs coach Matt McCall to play with confidence.
"He told me to be the player he wanted me to be," McLean said on the postgame radio broadcast. "I know I can do a lot more than I have been, and I came out with confidence to play the way I know how to play."
Junior forward Justin Tuoyo had 12 points and four blocked shots, while Casey Jones added 11 points and seven assists. Point guard Greg Pryor battled illness, but he still finished with 10 points.
Bobby Brown led Alabama State (1-3) with 14 points, while Jamel Waters added 11. The Hornets shot 33 percent for the game.
The Mocs shot 68 percent from the field for the game and had 28 assists on 36 baskets, with a season-low eight turnovers. They scored on 15 of their final 17 possessions of the second half to blow the game open.
"The thing I was most impressed with was that we played the right way on offense," McCall said. "We had an enormous amount of assists in the game, which tells me as a coach that we're playing the game the right way."
McCall wondered aloud if the 28 assists were a school record, but they weren't. However, they were the most by UTC in a Division I game since 2000, when the team matched that number in a win over Western Carolina. The Mocs had 32 in a win over Toccoa Falls on Nov. 20, 2004.
The Hornets had trailed in each of their three previous contests. They lost by 11 points to Mercer, but they rallied to defeat Virginia Tech and lost by just two to Alabama-Birmingham. McCall challenged his players to come out in the second half and perform even better than they had in the first, when they were outrebounded 25-13 by the Hornets, who grabbed 13 offensive rebounds during that time.
UTC won the battle of the boards 18-14 the rest of the way.
"Coach told us to come out, stay aggressive and get on the defensive glass more," Jones said. "We just came out with the mentality that even though we were up, we could get better, and that's what we did. We played hard.
"We have a lot of experience on this team and a lot of confidence. We feel we don't have a ceiling as to how good we can be. We can go as far as our hard work and work ethic allows us."