SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Thursday night, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team didn’t just take a step in the right direction. The Mocs sprinted at least 15 yards.
Their win at first-place Wofford moved UTC to within a game of the Southern Conference lead, with five regular-season games to play. It catapulted the Mocs 30 spots in the RPI rankings (from 158 to 128), and they can build on that today at home against Samford at 6, as the second part of a doubleheader that starts at 3 with the 21st-ranked UTC women facing UNC Greensboro.
This will be the first of three consecutive home games for the UTC men (17-9, 10-3).
They held Wofford to their lowest scoring output of the season in the 56-46 win, allowing only 30 percent shooting from the field. The win over the Terriers, who were ranked 39th in RPI prior to Thursday, was UTC’s first over a team ranked that high in Will Wade’s two seasons as coach
“Tonight was a very, very, very big win for us,” UTC forward Duke Ethridge, who had nine points and a career-high 12 rebounds, said after the game. “Coming off a loss (at Western Carolina), we just stuck through it, practiced hard, bought into the team and played hard. Coach told us we can’t dwell on the past — we have to move onto the next day — and we did that and stuck through.”
After today’s game against the Bulldogs (12-15, 5-9), the Mocs have a big week coming up, with home games against third-place Mercer and fifth-place East Tennessee State. Wade wasn’t concerned about anything other than Samford in the moments after the Wofford win.
“We’ll sorry about Saturday,” he said. “We can’t worry about the next three. We’ve got to take care of business Saturday: We have to play the same way, have the same attitude, the same disposition; we have to be connected like that, have the same spirit and come out and play the same way.
“That’s the most important thing. We’ll go from there.”
The intensity was there Thursday; so was the joy. After a big dunk that turned into a three-point play late in the game, Casey Jones — who was imploring his teammates to remain energized throughout the second half — ran over to the bench and celebrated.
So while the celebration didn’t officially start until there were zeros on the clock, it was continually going on within the team after big plays, something that Wade has been wanting to see and something that has been lacking the past couple of weeks.
“Tonight was big,” said Jones, who had 23 points and eight rebounds. “We did everything we needed to do, and it paid off. We played hard. We couldn’t get much going early, but we had a good response, stayed tough, and it paid off.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.