The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team entered the 2014-15 season full of high hopes and expectations.
It ended with a solid 22 wins and 10 losses — some of them bad and none worse than the last one.
The Mocs’ season ended with a 69-67 upset loss to Furman in the quarterfinals of the Southern Conference tournament in Asheville, N.C. For the second straight season, they entered as the No. 2 seed, and for the second straight season under coach Will Wade, they lost their first game of the tournament.
Furman, the No. 10 seed, followed its upset wins over seventh seed The Citadel, No. 2 seed UTC and No. 3 seed Mercer with a 67-64 scare of top-seeded and 28-6 Wofford in the SoCon tournament final.
It’s the fifth consecutive season that UTC’s men have been one-and-done in the tourney. The longest previous such streak was three times in 1977-79 — the Mocs’ first three seasons as a NCAA Division I program. The following season, the Mocs went 21-9 and advanced to the NCAA tournament.
UTC men’s basketball coach Will Wade shouts at an official after a call during the Mocs’ Senior Night SoCon basketball game against the ETSU Buccaneers on Feb. 21, 2015, at McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga.Saturday also marked the likely end of the season for UTC. Wade, while recruiting in Middle Tennessee on Tuesday, said there probably won’t be an appearance in the College Basketball Invitational or the CollegeInsider.com Tournament for the Mocs.
“Nah, we’re probably not,” Wade said. “It’s a combination of things. We’ve got some guys that do want to continue playing, but some others that aren’t as excited. That, plus the financial burden we’re going through as a university.
“When you combine those, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
That means that Saturday’s loss most likely marked the end of the careers of seniors Martynas Bareika, Lance Stokes and Ronrico White. They helped lead the program to 40 wins in their final two seasons, 27 of those in conference play.
White ends his decorated career 14th in scoring in UTC’s Division I history (1,100), 10th in assists (285), 10th in 3-pointers made (156), third in free throws made (334), tied for 13th in steals (93) and sixth in games played (120).
“We had a good season, I guess,” he said Saturday night. “I tried to play hard for my teammates and coaches. It just didn’t work out for whatever reason.”
The Mocs were 3-5 after a 32-point loss to Georgia on Dec. 2. They ran off 19 wins in their final 23 regular-season games, becoming the first UTC men’s team to win 20 games since the 2004-05 season. They had 20 Division I victories and were 15-3 in conference play, entering the tournament as possibly the most dangerous team, as their three losses were by a combined nine points — the smallest margin of any team in the conference.
They also had what could have been the best win of the conference regular season, defeating Wofford — the eventual tournament champion — 56-46 in Spartanburg, S.C., on Feb. 12. But in Asheville, they ran into Furman, which rode a hot streak all the way to the final.
The Mocs could return as many as seven players who started at least three games this year. They’ll add four signees: 6-foot-2 point guard Austin Donaldson of Jonesboro, Ga., who last week led his Class AAAA school to a state championship; 7-foot center Trey Kalina from North Cobb Christian in Marietta, Ga.; guard LaMarcus Lee of Baton Rouge, La.; and wing Zaqwaun Matthews, who at 6-4 can play three positions. In addition, guard/forward Dee Oldham transferred in midseason from UT-Martin and also can play multiple positions.
“We certainly got better as a team,” Wade said. “I thought our team improved from the first game to the end of the year. We didn’t play as well as we needed to in the conference tournament, but overall we were pretty consistent, got a little better every day and played well after Christmas.
“We’ll learn from this season and continue to grow as a team.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.