Not that it was needed, but in one quarter five days ago, Western Carolina got the attention of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team.
After the first period of that Southern Conference game, the Catamounts were leading Mercer - the preseason pick to finish second in the league - 16-0 in Cullowhee, N.C.
The Mocs (9-8, 3-0) face the Catamounts (5-14, 0-4) at 6:30 tonight at McKenzie Arena in the second of three straight home games. The Mocs will finish that stretch Saturday when they host UNC Greensboro in the first game of a women's-men's doubleheader.
The Bears missed all 17 of their first-quarter shots against Western Carolina and didn't score until 34 seconds into the second quarter. Mercer went on to win 59-57, but the Catamounts proved they can compete.
"It was a combination of Mercer missing shots they normally make, and they were a little out of sorts on defense and Western took advantage of that," UTC coach Jim Foster said Tuesday. "They got really good looks because they moved the ball and made the extra pass."
The Catamounts have made improvements in the second season of coach Stephanie McCormick's tenure.
They've been led by 6-foot-2 junior forward Sherae Bonner, who is first in the SoCon in rebounding, averaging 9.7 a game, and 19th in scoring by averaging 10.2 points. Foster described Bonner as a "strong, physical" player and credited McCormick for what she has done in her second season, but he said his team won't change its attack-on-both-ends approach.
"We don't spend a lot of time thinking about what others are doing," Foster said. "We want the ball moving. We want the ball hopping. Opportunities evolve in the framework of how they defend that, but if we keep the ball in one place, nothing good is going to happen, so we want ball movement, a couple of reversals and attack.
"We want to reverse the ball a couple of times and we will get pretty good shots."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.