With about two minutes to play in regulation Monday night at Mercer and with teammate Chuck Ester at the free throw line, Justin Tuoyo walked over to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball coach Matt McCall.
The two had a brief conversation, shook hands and Tuoyo jogged back on defense.
UTC coach Matt McCall yells during the game against Citadel Monday, Feburary 1, 2016, at McKenzie Arena.
UTC forward Justin Tuoyo blocks a shot by Furman guard Brady Schuck with Mocs teammate Dee Oldham also defending during last Saturday's game at McKenzie Arena. The Mocs play their sixth game in 13 days when they face Western Carolina tonight in Cullowhee, N.C.What was said?
"He told me he believed in me," Tuoyo said. "He said to stay with it, that he was going to keep coming to me and coming to me again, and that he loved me."
Tuoyo's response?
"All right, Coach, I got you," Tuoyo said with a laugh.
"That's our relationship. When I'm down, he still talks to me, even how bad I was playing he told me that, and that shows just how great of a coach he is."
Tuoyo finished 5-for-14 from the field against the Bears, with most of those shots contested by 7-foot-1 Andrew Fishler, who blocked a school-record eight shots and gave the 6-foot-10 UTC center problems throughout the night. But McCall kept going to his big man, including on the last play of regulation and the first two possessions of overtime.
Those plays resulted in a missed dunk over Fishler - "I still can't believe I missed that," Tuoyo said - a missed shot and finally a short hook that gave the Mocs the lead for good in the extra period on their way to a 72-66 win, the Bears' first home loss this season.
"I wanted to keep going to him," McCall said. "I knew he'd missed a dunk, but we had ran a play for him to start the second half just for his confidence, and he ended up making a jump hook in overtime that I thought got us going. When we went to him, it opened things up on the perimeter, and it was a total team effort."
The Mocs (22-3, 11-1 Southern Conference) are back in action tonight when they travel to Western Carolina (9-15, 4-7) for a 7:30 tipoff at the Ramsey Center in Cullowhee, N.C.
Building confidence has been one of the biggest things McCall has continued to do in his first season at UTC. It's why he sometimes bites his lip when he sees a player take what he deems a bad shot.
It's why he continued to run plays for senior guard Eric Robertson, who after a 7-for-11 explosion from 3-point range against UNC Greensboro on Jan. 21 made only six of his 21 attempts in the next four games.
But Robertson was 6-for-7 against Mercer, including conversions on each of his five first-half attempts and a dagger in overtime that gave the Mocs a six-point lead with 31.3 seconds to play.
And that's part of the reason why the Mocs have won nine straight games and remain in control of their place atop the SoCon standings.
"Coach has just told me to stay diligent and they will fall," Robertson said. "That last shot, I hesitated for only half a second to make sure we had run enough time off the shot clock before I did.
"I saw there was like eight seconds left and figured it was a good time to shoot."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.