Tre' McLean's stat line begged for a little selfishness. When you're on your way to a career-high 29 points and your previous best was 19, when nearly every shot you're shooting - 2-pointers, 3-pointers and free throws - is finding nothing but the bottom of the net, well, who could blame a guy for begging for the ball?
"No, I wasn't," the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga junior forward said at the close of the Mocs' 94-84 win over East Tennessee State on Saturday evening inside McKenzie Arena. "My teammates were just finding me. That's how unselfish they are. We're all brothers."
The Blue and Gold brothers are ballin' like no UTC team since the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 squad of 1997. They now stand 16-3 for the season and 5-1 in the Southern Conference. ETSU, which entered this game with a perfect 4-0 league mark, is 11-7 overall under first-year coach and former Tennessee assistant Steve Forbes.
Said Forbes, whose Bucs have lost at Villanova and Tennessee, but won at Georgia Tech: "(UTC's) the second best team we've played this season. No disrespect to Georgia Tech and Tennessee, but after Villanova, who's really good, UTC's pretty tough."
They meet again on Feb. 13 in Johnson City. If the atmosphere is half as electric as the official crowd of 5,003 Moc Maniacs made it feel inside McKenzie, this once-great SoCon rivalry will be well on its way to its return as the league's best hoops feud.
And it's a return that's desperately needed, especially with Davidson having left the league. Give Mocs Nation what appear to be budding rivalries with both ETSU and Mercer and watch the crowds continue to climb inside McKenzie from this point forward.
"Oh, I've been made aware of it," Forbes said with a grin. "My radio announcer talks about it all the time. My athletic director (Dick Sander) played here. So I get it. And I like being part of a rivalry. Especially when I like the other head coach."
They became friends a decade ago, UTC's Matt McCall and Forbes. They worked a "Fab Frosh camp" (as Forbes remembered it) in Washington, D.C., for high school freshmen.
"He was my assistant part of the time," Forbes said of McCall.
"My team ran Florida stuff; his ran Tennessee stuff," McCall recalled. "I don't remember who won."
Added Forbes: "Me, either. But I do know I lost just one game. I just couldn't tell if it was one of Matt's teams or not."
Whoever won those scrimmages, Forbes strongly recommended McCall last spring to UTC athletic director David Blackburn when Will Wade left for the Virginia Commonwealth job. Had Forbes not already taken the ETSU gig, he would assuredly have been on Blackburn's short list to coach the Mocs.
Half a basketball season later, both men have their programs as far along as anyone could have hoped for or expected.
"The difference," McCall said, "is that I had a lot of good players coming back. Steve went out and signed a bunch of good players."
All those good players on both sides figure to get better over the final six weeks of the season. The Mocs are fine-tuning a well-oiled machine. ETSU expects to be good enough to upset that machine 27 days from today in Johnson City.
"We know we'll see them again," said UTC center Justin Tuoyo, who scored 20 points, blocked six shots and grabbed six rebounds. "We know we have to go back to their place."
Added McCall: "It will be a big challenge when we go back there."
It no doubt will. For the Southern Conference to generate the money and interest it needs to become a nationally respected basketball league, it needs to be the kind of challenge that pulls in the kind of support the Mocs drew to McKenzie, if not a few more.
And when it comes, expect UTC's brothers again to cheer hard for each other. Or as McLean explained, "If Tuoyo gets a dunk, I'm more excited for him than he is."
Still, even McLean sheepishly admitted to wanting one more point against the Bucs as he stood at the foul line for the second of two free throws with 2:36 to play, his first free throw of those two having elevated him to 29 points.
"I had (injured teammate) Casey Jones chirping over there about 30 points," McLean said. "I started listening to him instead of focusing on the free throw."
Of course, brotherly love being brotherly love, he smiled and briefly chuckled as he recalled the one that bounced away.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com