There was no pomp or circumstance around the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team after its 20th victory of the season Thursday night in only 23 games.
For the Mocs, it's time to focus on getting No. 21.
UTC will host second-place Furman, which is 14-10 and 8-3 in the Southern Conference and gave the Mocs their lone defeat in league play. The Paladins won 70-55 in Greenville, S.C., on Jan. 9, and have won two straight in the series, having bounced the second-seeded Mocs in the SoCon tournament last season.
"Furman is one of the more pressuring teams in the half court," UTC coach Matt McCall said Thursday night. "Their pressure in the half court caused us a lot of problems in Greenville, so we have to use tomorrow to get better, no question."
The Mocs committed 20 turnovers in the first meeting and continually were beat on defense by Furman guards Stephen Croone and Devin Sibley, who combined to score 35 points. Since then, though, UTC has won all seven of its games - by an average of 16.3 points - while the Paladins are in a five-game win streak.
The Mocs became the third NCAA Division I men's team to reach the 20-win mark this season, joining fourth-ranked Maryland and sixth-ranked Xavier, each of whom got there Wednesday. After the Mocs won, Arkansas-Little Rock defeated Troy 72-49 Thursday night to become the fourth team.
"Your record is a complete reflection of your past," McCall said. "Twenty-and-three is not helping us on Saturday, so we have to turn around and start to get locked in on our next opponent on a short turnaround."
The current win-loss total is nice, as is the attention that comes along with it, but the Mocs don't want that to define them. Their focus remains putting themselves in the best position to win three games in March in Asheville, N.C.
"We know that every time we go out, teams want to beat us," junior center Justin Tuoyo said. "We have to go out there and play, because everyone is hungry and wants to hunt us. But we need to be the ones doing the hunting still. We're still out there trying to accomplish something, and our whole team knows that."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfree press.com. Follow him at twitter.com/gene henleytfp.