ASHEVILLE, N.C. - As Joshua Phillips walked off the court as a college basketball player for the last time, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Lamont Paris stopped the team's lone senior and said a few words.
"He told me that he appreciated me and the things I did for the team," Phillips said.
The Mocs' first season under Paris ended in Saturday's Southern Conference tournament with a 77-60 loss to East Tennessee State, with the Mocs falling in the quarterfinals for the second straight year since sweeping the league's regular-season and tournament titles in 2016. They finished 10-23 this season, with Friday's first-round win keeping them from becoming the first UTC men's basketball team in the NCAA Division era that didn't reach double digits in victories.
There are positives to glean, including lots of close games - 11 of their 18 in league play came down to the final possession - and the fact a frustrating season never seemed to trickle down to the players. If it did, it didn't show in their effort.
"A lot of that is character," Paris said Saturday night. "The natural reaction to some of the adversity we've faced is to be discouraged, if not quit. When you're not having the successes you want in terms of wins and losses, even though there was a lot of growth, that adds to that - but we talked multiple times with this group about not being easily discouraged, continue to do what we do, play hard and compete, and if we competed enough times, when that clock came down, we'd be right where we want to be.
"Those (close games) are learning opportunities for those guys to grow and recognize where we were, who we were. We faced a lot of adversity. These are not excuses, they're factual statements, and our big things were to grow, be confident and compete. We want that to be what we hang our hat on when you think of our basketball program, is that when you play against us, hopefully you pack a lunch."
The Mocs returned little experience entering this season, but that won't be the case in 2018-19. They'll return players who accounted for 91 percent of the minutes played, 90 percent of the points and 86 percent of the rebounds this season.
Junior forward Makinde London had a program single-season record three games with at least 20 points and 15 rebounds. Rodney Chatman was one of the top point guards in the SoCon, averaging 13.3 points and 4.5 rebounds as a sophomore. Junior swingman Nat Dixon led the team in scoring with an average of 13.8 points per game, while sophomore Makale Foreman - he and redshirt freshman David Jean-Baptiste were the only Mocs to appear in all 33 games - averaged 10.2.
Forward James Lewis started 21 games and averaged 7.3 points and 5.4 rebounds. He shot 51 percent from the floor despite a five-game stretch to end the regular season in which he shot just 24 percent. Fellow freshman Jonathan Bryant played in 24 games and showed improvement.
Depth was a weakness, with injuries stunting some of the progress shown early. Promising guard/forward Duane Moss played in seven games, averaging 4.9 points and shooting 57 percent from 3-point range before a back injury kept him out the rest of the season. Fellow freshman Justin Brown didn't make it to the opener, succumbing to a back injury as well. Chatman, Lewis and London also missed time with injuries, and the top seven players in terms of minutes all averaged at least 24.5 per game.
The Mocs played three games while down to five available scholarship players and eight total. Two of those games went into overtime.
"We had a lot of guys play a lot of minutes, more minutes than I think most college players are capable of playing over the duration of a 30-something game season," Paris said. "That's what circumstances dictated sometimes. Now, the challenge is to improve in the offseason, and take the experiences you had and let them dictate your actions, and if you don't, you're not really learning, you're just doing the same thing.
"We have to have the right mindset and attack the things we did as individuals that we could have improved on and concentrate on what we need to do in order to learn from some of the mistakes that allowed the season to go the way it did."
There is help on the way. Ramon Vila, a 6-foot-9 forward who has already transferred from Arizona State, and guard Jerry Johnson, a transfer from Fairfield, will be available next season, although Vila can't play until after the first semester ends. The Mocs have signed 6-foot guard Maurice Commander, rated the No. 5 player in the state of Illinois, and 5-foot-9 guard Donovann Toatley, who has been ranked as a top-10 player in the District of Columbia.
The foundation has been laid. The next step is to build.
"That was the whole year," London said. "From the outside, there were not a lot of expectations for us coming into the season, and we did a great job of handling the outside, the media, everything and still learning and growing and being able in each and every game.
"All those one-possession games, they were all learning experiences, and this is another domino that will eventually make us better."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.