Defensively, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team gave itself a chance to compete in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday at North Carolina State.
But offensively, the Mocs weren't able to match the effort.
The Southern Conference champions limited the third-seeded Wolfpack to 33% shooting from the field, but the home team — led by former UTC coach Wes Moore — was able to knock down five more 3-pointers and 12 more free throws on its way to a 64-45 win at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh.
N.C. State (28-6) plays again Monday against sixth-seeded Tennessee (20-12), which had no trouble in Saturday's first game at the venue, winning 92-63 against No. 11 seed Green Bay. Up for grabs in the second-round matchup is a spot in the Sweet 16 next weekend in Portland, Oregon.
The Mocs, who were a No. 14 seed, finished their second year under coach Shawn Poppie with 28 wins — the second most in a single season in program history — and just five defeats.
N.C. State's length bothered UTC on offense, as there were times the Mocs appeared to have open shots but passed them up, which led to worse looks with less time on the shot clock.
The Mocs' primary scorers this season, Jada Guinn and Raven Thompson, combined for 24 points on 9-for-24 shooting, but the rest of the team shot just 8-for-27. Although 3-point shooting had typically been a strength for the Mocs, it wasn't this time as they went 3-for-15 from behind the arc, with junior forward Karsen Murphy making two of those.
"Our offense was to try to run stuff and then try to get looks, and we were going to have to space them out," Poppie said in his postgame news conference. "Hindsight is 20/20, maybe we should have tried to play a little bit faster. I thought we played faster in the fourth and we scored 19, but I just wasn't sold if you were able to do that long term, you'd get enough stops. We got some decent looks early on, we didn't make enough of them.
"To beat somebody like this on the road, you're going to have to shoot the ball better. We shot 37, 38% from the 3 on the year, and we go 3-for-15. That's not going to win games, especially at this level."
The pace actually helped in the first half, which ended with the Mocs trailing 26-17. NC State didn't pull away until early in the third quarter, using a 12-0 run to fully take control of the contest. Half of the points in the surge were at the free-throw line, where the Wolfpack went 20-of-25 for the game. The coinciding foul trouble started to become a problem as UTC was whistled for nine in the third quarter to N.C. State's one.
The Wolfpack led 45-26 entering the fourth.
"In the first half, we were knocking down those open looks," Guinn said. "Coach Poppie did a good job of setting us up offensively, and we were able to execute, and I think in the second half we just weren't able to knock the shots down."
UTC fell to 1-17 all-time in the NCAA tournament.
Addie Porter had nine rebounds for the Mocs, who now must deal with the exit of Guinn — an All-SoCon first-team selection and the MVP of the league tournament in her lone year with the Mocs as a graduate transfer — and the expected loss of Sigrun Olafsdottir, who made the SoCon All-Defensive team. Olafsdottir technically has a year of eligibility remaining because of the NCAA's blanket waiver granted to all student-athletes affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
N.C. State's leading scorers were Aziaha James (19 points), Saniya Rivers (16) and River Baldwin (10 with 11 rebounds). East Hamilton graduate Madison Hayes had eight rebounds, five points and four assists for the Wolfpack.
Official change
Tommi Paris, who graduated from Chattanooga's Girls Preparatory School and earned a master's degree in public administration from UTC, was pulled at halftime of the game and replaced after the NCAA learned about the conflict.
"There was a switch of game officials at halftime of the Chattanooga-NC State first-round game because it was learned after the game had started that Umpire 2 Tommi Paris had a background conflict that, if known, would prevent her from working that assigned game," the NCAA said in a released statement.
Paris was replaced by Angelica Suffren, who assessed a technical foul to Poppie in the fourth quarter after the UTC head coach disagreed with the discrepancy in fouls in the second half.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.