Matt McCall isn't concerned about his team's offense.
Not yet.
For the second time in four games, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's men's basketball team stalled on that end of the court, this time in a 65-51 loss to East Tennessee State University at McKenzie Arena.
The Mocs (19-8, 10-5 Southern Conference) shot only 42 percent from the floor Saturday, and when they weren't missing shots, they were turning the ball over, with 19 miscues leading to 26 points for ETSU (22-6, 12-3). UTC scored 20 points in the first half and followed that with 19 points in the second half until the final 2:04, when the Mocs hit four 3-pointers to manicure the final score.
Three games prior, the Mocs had a 17-point second half, losing a six-point halftime lead and falling 60-56 at Furman.
"There are nights we're really, really good and the ball is going in, and there are nights where the ball didn't go in at all," McCall said after Saturday's game. "I'm not necessarily concerned about the offense.
"When the ball is going in the basket, we have the chance to be good. When not, we have to find ways to guard, but when you're playing a team as good as ETSU, you've got to find other things to do, and we didn't do that."
Last season - McCall's first as UTC's coach - the Mocs earned a three-game sweep of the Buccaneers while doing a good job of getting to the line in those wins. The Mocs didn't do that Saturday, taking 12 free throws and making seven. They weren't beaten as badly on the boards as in this season's first meeting with ETSU, a 76-71 loss in Johnson City last month, but the Bucs still held a four-rebound edge.
And then there were the turnovers, which McCall said is "the thing that's concerning to me." ETSU scored 21 points off 13 second-half turnovers, which aided a 17-0 run that blew the game open.
"It's hard, man. It's all on us," UTC senior Casey Jones said. "We shoot good reps, but we have to take care of the ball. When they switched to the 1-3-1 zone, I'm sure we had two or three turnovers back to back.
"It's hard to win with 19 turnovers."
Despite going .500 their past eight games, the Mocs enter Wednesday's 8 p.m. matchup at Samford (16-12, 7-8) with a strong chance to earn the No. 4 seed for the SoCon tournament. Remaining in the regular season after that are a home game against Mercer (13-15, 7-8) next Saturday and a game at The Citadel (9-19, 2-13) a week from today.
The same UTC team that had its share of problems on offense Saturday scored 91 points in a blowout victory against UNC Greensboro on Feb. 2, registered 77 two days later against Western Carolina and had 73 in an eight-point road victory over Wofford on Feb. 11 - one of two home losses this season for the Terriers.
That UTC team is still around. It just needs to be rediscovered.
"I don't think it's what we're running," McCall said. "We had some wide-open looks that didn't go down. We forced a couple of shots, but I definitely thought there were some open looks that just didn't go in the basket.
"We were ready to play. I thought we were focused. We had two good days of practice, so I don't think it was a lack of focus. When things aren't going well, it's easy to get consumed with yourself and try to get it all back in one play, then you combat it with another mistake.
"There's a lot of that transpiring, too."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.