To steal a phrase from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball coach Matt McCall, his team "played the right way" in the second half of Saturday's game against Furman.
The results were there to show for it.
In the second half, the Mocs shot 63 percent overall and were 5-for-9 from 3-point range. Coupled with a solid defensive performance, it led to an 80-64 Southern Conference win over the Paladins in front of 3,495 at McKenzie Arena.
UTC (12-4, 3-1) will host The Citadel on Wednesday before playing at Mercer next Saturday.
Johnathan Burroughs-Cook led the Mocs with 19 points, including 13 in the first half. Justin Tuoyo finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and three blocks, and Greg Pryor hit all four of his shots from the field, including three 3-pointers, in a 13-point outing with four assists.
"We had much better ball movement in the second half," McCall said. "Furman is such a physical team, such a good team. (Coach) Niko (Medved) does such a good job with them, and they were able to get stops and got us out on the break.
"In the second half, the ball moved and we had a desire to get stops. They took the lead, but we did a good job of staying connected and playing the game."
The Mocs went 25-for-30 on free throws and were 9-for-20 from 3-point range. They finished with 11 assists, including eight in the second half on 12 baskets. Aside from the UTC scorers in double figures, four other Mocs had point totals ranging from seven to nine.
"When we start hitting 3s, we almost feel unstoppable," Tuoyo said. "We know we're not a big 3-point shooting team, but hitting them makes us a great one. We move the ball. We've got great drivers and good post players.
"It's hard to check everybody at one time."
UTC was amped up to start the first half and led by 11 points nine minutes in. The Paladins (10-7, 3-1) had trimmed the lead to 35-29 by halftime after making stops on defense and getting the ball out in transition.
Furman then held the Mocs without a field goal for the first 3:22 of the second half and tied at 40 on Devin Sibley's 3-pointer with 16:09 to play. Daniel Fowler's 3 briefly gave Furman a 45-44 lead with 13:18 to go, but Makinde London answered with a 3 of his own that sparked an 11-0 UTC run.
"We know basketball is a game of runs," Pryor said. "They're going to score, they've got good players. We're going to score, we've got good players, but we really focused on defense and let the defense transition into offense. Even when they made their run, we didn't get tied into ourselves and try to get the game back in one play."
Sibley, a junior guard, led the Paladins with 25 points, shooting 8-for-14 from the field. Kris Acox added 18 points while Daniel Fowler had 12 to go with six assists, but the Paladins were only 11-for-29 from the field in the second half.
"Give Chattanooga a lot of credit. They played well, made shots and got to the free throw line," Medved said. "I didn't think our defense was very good. We took tough shots and really didn't play very strong at the rack. We had some opportunities at the rim and weren't very strong and aggressive.
"Give those guys credit. They played very well and took care of business on their home court. We have to quickly be able to move on to the next."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.