UTC head coach Lamont Paris shouts instructions to his team. The Wofford Terriers visited the Chattanooga Mocs in Southern Conference basketball action at McKenzie Arena on February 17, 2018. On March 20, 2013, the day he was ousted as University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball coach, John Shulman stood at the podium trying to find the best way to put a lid on his time leading the Mocs.
"You're not supposed to stay at a school nine years," he said. "You're supposed to be 'Five and die' or 'Five and move on."
Five years later, the UTC fan base yearns for a coach to stay three.
The lack of coaching continuity caught up to the Mocs in the 2017-18 season, when they struggled to a 10-23 record and a last-place finish in the Southern Conference standings. It took a win over Samford in the first round of the SoCon tournament to reach double figures; had they not won, it would have been the program's first season with single-digit victories since 1966-67, when the program was still in Division II.
Feeling the best approach was to build from the bottom, coach Lamont Paris started this season with the youngest roster in the country, moving slightly ahead of Kentucky in late November when senior Joshua Phillips joined the team as a walk-on after football season ended.
Six freshmen and no seniors were on the roster at the start, and that was before injuries ravaged the program. One of the freshmen, Justin Brown, never played, ultimately redshirting, and Duane Moss missed the final 26 games. At one point the team played with only five scholarship athletes.
Paris was the program's fourth head coach in six seasons. That's in a league where only one other school - Furman - has had three this decade. Mercer, UNC Greensboro and Wofford haven't changed head coaches since 2012.
Shulman was replaced in 2013 by Will Wade, who in two seasons won 40 games and led the Mocs to a pair of second-place league finishes before leaving for Virginia Commonwealth. He's now at LSU.
Matt McCall then took over and used a mix of Shulman's players, Wade's and his own to win the program's first SoCon championship since 2009 in his first season. McCall guided the Mocs to wins at Georgia and Dayton and a neutral-site win over Illinois in his first season. A Shulman signee, Casey Jones, was extremely instrumental in the season-opening win over Georgia, and McCall even texted a "thank you" message to Shulman the following morning.
His second season started off well, with the Mocs winning 15 of their first 19 games, including one against Tennessee. But that team fell apart late, losing eight of its final 12 for a 19-12 finish. McCall bolted for the University of Massachusetts after the season.
Thirty-six players have signed with the program since 2012, Shulman's last recruiting class (and that does not count forwards Traevis Graham and Jackson White, preferred walk-ons who were expected to contribute). Of that number, 11 never made it to the UTC campus, either going to junior colleges or backing out of their letters of intent in the wake of a coaching change.
In some cases, new coaching staffs have had to scramble to put together a class, and mistakes have been made due to different coaching styles and a lack of an evaluation period. But only five players signed since 2012 - Jones, Tre' McLean, Greg Pryor, Eric Robertson and Justin Tuoyo - have been in the program at least three years, with Jones, Pryor and Robertson the only ones starting and finishing their careers at the school.
That could be starting to change, though. The Mocs are expected to start the 2018-19 season with four players - lone senior Makinde London (provided he removes himself from NBA draft consideration), juniors Rodney Chatman and Makale Foreman and redshirt sophomore David Jean-Baptiste - entering their third season in Chattanooga. Another, Nat Dixon, would have been entering his third season but has elected to graduate and transfer for his final season.
What's next is a promising recruiting class ranked No. 1 in the SoCon and in the top 100 in the country, highlighted by 247Sports.com three-star forward Kevin Easley and three-star guard Maurice Commander. It also includes dynamic 5-foot-9 guard Donovann Toatley and 6-7 forward Keigan Kerby, each rated with two stars by VerbalCommits.com.
Sprinkle in Brown and Moss returning as redshirt freshmen and the Mocs will be young again in the 2018-19 season, but seemingly far more talented. In addition to the freshmen, Fairfield transfer guard Jerry Johnson, a junior, and Arizona State transfer forward Ramon Vila, a sophomore, will be getting their first UTC action on the court, although Vila won't be eligible until after the first semester.
The second season under Paris should be better. And a third would be looking good for sure.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.