The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball Mocs have shown they can outscore teams.
This weekend in the Emerald Coast Classic, they showed they can defend as well.
The Mocs claimed the title of the two-day event at Northwest Florida State Community College in Niceville, Fla., defeating Jacksonville State 62-52. UTC improved to 5-1 for the season with a road game Monday against Louisiana-Monroe before returning home.
It's the last game of a five-game, 10-day road stretch.
Justin Tuoyo scored 14 points to lead four Mocs scoring in double figures. Casey Jones added 11 points and a team-high six rebounds, while Greg Pryor and Eric Robertson had 10 points each.
The UTC bench outscored the Gamecocks' reserves 17-1, led by Duke Ethridge's seven points and three rebounds in 11 minutes. Chuck Ester added six points and five rebounds in 12 minutes.
The Mocs shot 43 percent for the game - 48 percent in the second half - and limited the Gamecocks to 40 percent shooting for the game. That came a day after the Mocs held Alabama State to 58 points in a 37-point victory.
"We really paid a lot of attention to our defense," Robertson said. "Offensively, it really wasn't clicking a lot in the first half, so we really relied on our defense to help us get the win. Defense was really a focus coming in."
UTC coach Matt McCall said the win over Jacksonville State should be considered a good one. The Gamecocks had two opponents this season - Virginia Tech and Alabama-Birmingham - "on the ropes," he reminded. JSU has no starter over 6-foot-6.
"Offensively, we struggled a little bit," McCall said. "I think our size advantage actually hurt us a little bit. They crawled up into Tuoyo a little bit crawled up into Casey Jones. That caused us some issues in the first half with some missed layups. This is going to make us better down the road, grinding out a good win against a really good team."
The Mocs led 30-21 at halftime and built a 14-point lead in the second half, but the Gamecocks (3-5) crawled to within 54-48 on a dunk by Christian Cunningham with 3:30 to play. UTC responded by scoring on four consecutive possessions to put the game out of reach.
Erik Durham scored 17 points on 4-for-7 3-point shooting to lead JSU, while Cunningham had 16 points and 12 rebounds and Jared Hamilton added 10.
"Defense is one of our good aspects we haven't done so far," Tuoyo said. "So this weekend we've focused on that. We've held teams to 58 and 52, so we've shown we can win in any way possible."