UTC head coach Will Wade watches his players from the sidelines during a UTC vs. Georgia game at McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014.There's a single, fatal flaw in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's "Chaos" defense. It's the same flaw that every basketball program that embraces full-court pressure as its No. 1 defensive plan must accept.
The flaw is this: If you don't score, it's tough to set up your press.
That's not the only element of the Mocs' game plan that let them down in Tuesday night's 86-55 loss to Georgia at McKenzie Arena. They were crushed on the backboard, outrebounded 39-24. A team built on defensive pressure, UTC recorded two fewer steals (2) than UGA.
As expected against a taller, more athletic team, the Mocs also came away with only five blocked shots compared to 10 for the Bulldogs.
Yet none of that mattered nearly so much as the fact that, as UTC's leading scorer Casey Jones noted, "We couldn't throw a rock in the ocean tonight."
In one of those performances that was epically bad and hugely unfortunate in its timing, the Mocs shot 31 percent from the field for the game (18-of-58), basically equaling that futility from the 3-point line with 30.4 percent (7-of-23).
"We did some good things," said second-year UTC coach Will Wade. "They just hit shots and we didn't."
So many times, that's basketball. Period. So even if the Mocs got off nine more shots than the Bulldogs (58 to 49); even if they actually shot it much better from the foul line (86 percent to 71 percent), even if they corralled 11 offensive rebounds during all those misses, they still lost. By a wide margin. Against a team that was 3-3 coming in and shooting just 26 percent from the 3-point line.
"When we shoot the right ones, we're a good 3-point shooting team," Georgia coach Mark Fox said after watching his Bulldogs can a preposterous 7 of 11 from behind the arc, including five of six by game-high scorer Kenny Gaines. "Tonight we shot the right ones."
Wade thought his team shot the right ones, too.
"We had good looks," he said. "We just didn't make them."
In truth, they haven't been making them all year. The Mocs entered this game hitting 29.7 percent of their 3-pointers and 42.4 percent of their total field-goal shots.
The reason for their three wins in seven games entering the Georgia contest was their defense despite those shooting woes. Before the Bulldogs entered McKenzie, UTC opponents were hitting just 30.7 percent of their 3-pointers and only 41 percent from the field overall.
And that was after playing such ranked opponents on the road as Wisconsin and Butler.
But maybe there's something special about this Georgia squad that befuddles and bullies the Mocs. Last year's 87-56 UGA win was its largest of the year. This year's final score is the exact same 31-point spread. "Twilight Zone"a theme music, anyone?
Nor is it any great indictment of the Mocs to lose to these Bulldogs, who are bigger, stronger and more experienced -- no freshmen, two juniors and two seniors on the starting five.
The junior Gaines is so mature that after a bout with mono this fall, he's been getting off as many as 700 shots a day the past week or so to improve his accuracy. Against UTC he hit 9 of 11 total.
"Just getting more arc on the ball more than anything else," Gaines said afterward. "The coaches thought I was shooting too flat. They asked me to put more air under it, the way I did last year."
Then there was senior Marcus Thornton, who took the same number of shots as Gaines and hit one more, finishing with 24 points and a game-high six rebounds to Gaines's 25 points.
Yet despite the margin, Fox saw much to like in UTC going forward.
"They're a good team," he said. "They'll have some success when they get into league play."
He's no doubt right. No Southern Conference team would appear to be a physical match to the Bulldogs.
And Wade isn't panicking. Nor should he.
"You can't take away everything," he said. "We played the numbers (UGA's poor shooting for the season) and lost. Also, and I'm not an excuses maker, but this is our eighth game in 18 days. Our guys are tired. They need a break. Especially the way we play."
The way they play should work more often than not. Chaos often proved unstoppable last season. As this team's shooting improves -- "I think we're going to be a good shooting team," Wade said -- so will its pressure defense, which should become far more troublesome in conference play.
But on those hopefully rare nights the Mocs can't hit the ocean with a rock, Fox also spoke the truth when he said, "It's hard to press when the other team's not taking the ball out. Hard to press off a miss."
And when you're a pressing team, it's hard to win when you can't press. On those nights, Chaos can sometimes be KO'd.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.