Someone might want to check the rims at McKenzie Arena to make sure they’re the regulation size. They sure seemed bigger than normal Saturday.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Georgia Southern women’s basketball teams came into Saturday’s game – the Southern Conference opener for UTC – shooting below 40 percent for the season.
Yet the teams put on a scoring clinic at the Roundhouse.
The Lady Mocs hit 61.1 percent of their shots, including a SoCon-record 16 3-pointers, in an 87-80 win over the Eagles.
“Whenever you’re in the zone, you’re in the zone,” said UTC sophomore Kayla Christopher, who hit five 3s and 8 of 12 shots and scored a career-high 21 points.
UTC coach Wes Moore, admittedly a “glass is half empty” kind of guy, wasn’t happy at all about allowing GSU (1-7, 0-2) to score so many points and shoot 56.4 percent from the field.
“Giving up 80 points worries the heck out of me,” Moore said before adding that he had to “be thankful for a win, be thankful that we knocked down a whole bunch of 3s and found a way to get it done.”
The Lady Mocs (3-4, 1-0) got game highs of 23 points, eight rebounds and six assists from forward Whitney Hood. She hit 10 of 14 shots, but her play inside was overshadowed by the team’s barrage of 3s.
While UTC was hitting 16 of 24, Georgia Southern wasn’t doing too poorly, either. The Eagles made 11 of 22, but their only lead, 23-22, lasted nine seconds before Christopher hit a 3 to put UTC back in front.
UTC built its largest lead, 70-58, on a Tenisha Townsend 3, the team’s 15th of the game. The Eagles didn’t go away, however.
Georgia Southern freshman Jordi Cook, a former Northwest Whitfield standout, hit a 3 from the left corner to cut the deficit to 74-71 with 4:12 remaining. But Kylie Lambert then chose an opportune moment to knock down her only field goal.
Lambert, who scored a career-high 21 points in UTC’s last game, hit the record-breaking 3 from the top of the key. Soon after, Christopher hit a pull-up jumper to make it 79-71.
Georgia Southern hit another 3 late to cut the lead to 84-80 with 36 seconds left, but UTC was able to close out the win.
“It gets some energy going and it’s very important,” Townsend said of opening SoCon play with a win. She hit four 3s and scored 17 points.
MiMi Dubose led the Eagles with 16 points. Cook, who had scored three points all season before Saturday, had 10.
The Lady Mocs are off until this Saturday when they host No. 8 Kentucky, the third Top 25 opponent in UTC’s first nine games.