The practice of playing in so many close games finally paid off for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team.
With their season on the line and holding on to a two-point lead against Samford, the Mocs went on an 8-0 run over the final 1:48 of an 89-79 win Friday night in the first round of the Southern Conference tournament at the U.S. Cellular Center.
The 10th-seeded Mocs (10-22) will face second-seeded East Tennessee State in the quarterfinals tonight at 6. The Citadel beat Virginia Military Institute 78-70 in the other first-round game and will face top-seeded UNC Greensboro at noon. In the other quarterfinals, Mercer faces Wofford at 2:30 p.m. and Furman plays Western Carolina at 8:30.
Friday's UTC-Samford game was one in which every Mocs player contributed. Makinde London played possibly his best overall game as a Moc, finishing with 25 points, 14 points, four assists, three steals and two blocks. He was 9-for-18 from the field, 3-for-7 from 3-point range and made all but one of his five free throws.
"Coach challenged me recently to perform," London said. "That can mean a lot of things, but to me it was doing your job, and I really tried to focus on doing it every time I had plays - make them. It's not always scoring the ball, it's boxing out, stay solid, stick to our rules.
"That was my main thing, to focus on that, and it worked."
Rodney Chatman played 31 minutes in his first game back from an ankle injury, looking tentative early but improving as the game went on. He had 18 points, four rebounds and four assists with no turnovers. David Jean-Baptiste played his best game of the season, with 18 points on 4-for-4 shooting from 3-point range, including a huge 3 with 1:48 to play after the Bulldogs had cut UTC's lead to two. Makale Foreman added 14, including a trio of 3-pointers.
"We had more guys play well at the same time than maybe we have had all season," said first-year UTC coach Lamont Paris, whose team ended a five-game losing streak. "That was great to see, that guys could do it. We had a bunch of guys make enough shots, some guys made a lot of shots. Guys made plenty of plays, and that's an indication that you can win.
"I know this team is good enough to win when you play like that, but you have to perform and we had guys perform. When we have three to four guys perform, I know we can win because we're playing hard and trying to do the right things on the defensive end."
The Mocs shot 49 percent from the field for the game and 53 percent in the second half. They made 12 3-pointers, six in each half. Although Samford (10-22) shot 57 percent from the field in the second half and 51 percent for the game, the Mocs held the Bulldogs to just a pair of 3-pointers on nine attempts in the second half, and that proved to be the difference.
Demetrius Denzel-Dyson had 20 points in his final game to lead the Bulldogs. Justin Coleman added 19 to go along with 15 assists - a SoCon tournament record - while Eric Adams had 14 points and 10 rebounds and Alex Thompson chipped in 12.
Coleman had a pair of 3s and an assist in the first three possessions of the game as the Bulldogs jumped out to an 8-0 lead with just 1:06 off the clock. The Mocs settled in and used their own 8-0 run to take a 32-30 lead and were ahead 39-35 at halftime.
The Mocs only trailed once in the second half, after a layup by Kevion Nolan made it 66-65 with 7:19 to play, but London responded with a 3. UTC took the lead for good on a left-handed layup by Jean-Baptiste with 6:13 remaining.
A Triston Chambers 3 cut the Mocs' lead to 81-79 with 2:02 to play, but Jean-Baptiste responded again, this time with a 3 from the left wing. Chatman and London were 5-for-6 from the foul line down the stretch, and the Mocs forced a steal and a couple of missed shots by Samford to pull away.
"I thought we got off to a really good start, but they did a good job of taking away our pick-and-roll," Samford coach Scott Padgett said. "Offensively we did some really good things in the second half, but we couldn't come up with that one big play to put us over the hump.
"It was a frustrating end to a frustrating year."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.