Jahmal Burroughs lifted a tyke up to the rim so the little fellow could dunk.
Drazen Slovaric did a little Serbian jig after his introduction, and Omar Wattad had a different handshake or chest-bump for the rest of his teammates as they were introduced at an outdoor exhibition of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball Saturday.
The 2010-11 Mocs and Lady Mocs were introduced to fans in the second annual Blue and Gold Tipoff. It was presented by Praters Inc., which built and brought in a basketball floor just for the event in the First Tennessee Pavilion before the UTC football game.
“It’s all about the fans here, and it’s fun to cut up with them and play some of these crazy games,” Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore said. “It’s also good for our players to realize the level of interest there is in basketball here in Chattanooga.”
The Lady Mocs participated in shooting and dummy-offense drills for about 15 minutes. Then the Mocs took the floor for a layup/dunk line. Then they recruited some help from young fans to be passers in their drills. Junior forward Chris Early beat Slovaric in a dunk contest.
Then members of both teams combined with fans to participate in shooting contests and silly games involving streamers, toilet paper and party cups.
“It was a lot of fun to be out here with the fans,” Early said. “Coach [Ricky] Cabrera told me to cradle it and throw it down. I did and I guess I won.”
The Mocs and Lady Mocs will return to business today with closed scrimmages.
The Lady Mocs will travel to Georgia Tech and scrimmage with the Yellow Jackets for most of the day. The Mocs departed for Ole Miss after the football game. They will go against the Rebels in a variety of controlled and gamelike situations complete with officials.
“I want to beat them,” Wattad said. “More importantly, we want to show that we can play.”
Coach John Shulman will be without 7-foot-1 senior center Jeremy Saffore, who has suffered headaches since taking a shot to the mouth on Wednesday.
“I want to see where we are,” Shulman said. “It’s our first pre-test. We’re the most unselfish team we’ve had here so far, but the lights haven’t come on and we haven’t kept stats.”