UTC forward Tre' McLean shoots for 3 during the Mocs' home basketball game against The Citadel at McKenzie Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.MACON, Ga. - The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team started its rally against Mercer on Saturday by getting stops on the defensive end.
So it was fitting that the biggest play of the game came on that side as well.
The Mocs held the Bears to 36 percent shooting in the second half, and Justin Tuoyo blocked a potential game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds of UTC's 70-68 Southern Conference win at Hawkins Arena.
The Mocs (14-4, 5-1) will host Samford next Saturday at 5 p.m. in the second half of a doubleheader at McKenzie Arena. The UTC women will play UNC Greensboro at 2.
Tre' McLean led the Mocs against Mercer with 15 points, 10 coming in the second half. Casey Jones and Jonathan Burroughs-Cook added 10 each, the latter leading the team with four assists. The Mocs shot 44 percent from the field for the game and made five second-half 3-pointers.
They trailed 38-30 with 34 seconds to play in the first half but started their rally with a Greg Pryor floater with four seconds to go. Mercer's Jordan Strawberry then slipped after catching the inbounds pass, and Burroughs-Cook converted a layup right before the buzzer.
The Bears shot 58 percent in the first half.
"We're getting everyone's best shot every night," UTC coach Matt McCall said. "I thought defensively we could have been better, but give them a lot of credit: They made some very difficult shots because they've got good players. I thought if we continued to stay the course, we would get stops because of the rate they were making shots and the level of difficulty those shots were.
"We didn't really get into a flow offensively, but defensively I thought we were really good."
The Mocs held Mercer to one field goal in the first seven minutes of the second half and drew even, then assumed control with a 13-2 run keyed by 3-pointers by true freshmen Rodney Chatman and Makale Foreman to take a 58-51 lead with 8:15 to play. Mercer rallied, with nine straight points by Ria'n Holland, but Tuoyo scored on a drive over the 7-foot-1 Andrew Fishler and McLean had five straight pointoso to stretch the Mocs' lead to 67-62.
McLean's running one-handed bank shot in the lane with 2:17 to play was the game's final field goal.
Mercer's Demetre Rivers and Desmond Ringer then made two free throws each, which were answered by a pair of McLean free throws. Then came Tuoyo's big block, and Chatman jumped high in the air to snare the loose ball and was fouled. He made one of two free throws to put the game away and make Stephon Jelks' last-second layup meaningless.
"We practice that a lot - switching out, staying down, don't foul," Tuoyo said. "When he came off the screen and I switched out, I made it a point not to foul, try not to jump, so I squared up and got the block.
"Made my day."
The Bears went the last 4:43 without a field goal until Jelks' basket.
Tuoyo, a Georgia native along with Chatman, had nine points, three rebounds and two blocks. Chatman finished with six points, four rebounds and two assists.
The Mocs won without sophomore Nat Dixon, who missed the game due to personal reasons.
Holland finished with a game-high 22 points for Mercer (8-11, 2-4), while Ringer added 10.
"We try to define our culture on defense," McLean said. "It's going to win us games. When you come into environments like this, we know we're going to have to guard to win games."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.