It might be too cold for a dip in the pool on Saturday, but UTC is trying to make Saturday a good day for a different sort of dip — a double dip.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team will face NCAA tournament regular Murray State at 3 p.m., then the Lady Mocs will face No. 14 Kentucky in the back end of a double-header at 6 p.m.
“We put a lot of focus into the major non-conference team, which is Murray State instead of UT or Georgia Tech,” said Ryan Peck, director of marketing and promotions. “Based on the fact that football is slowing down except for the bowl games, it works out nice with a double-header which is a good value for the fans.”
Promotions for Saturday’s game include an appearance by the ZOOperStars (a regular entertainment group at Lookouts games) online tickets for $4 with a promotional code, free gold pom-poms, and a Gold Rush — a scaled-down version of white-out — plus other surprises.
“Some games have the potential to draw more fans than others, and we have two quality opponents with name recognition, and the staff has done an excellent job of providing something new an unique for each game,” athletics director Rick Hart said. “We’re hopeful for a festive day.”
But neither Hart nor Peck would put out an attendance number that would please them. UTC averaged a hair under 3,500 fans per home game last season. Men’s coach John Shulman just wants the Roundhouse to be rocking.
“I hope we’ve proven that we’re better than people thought we were, and we’ve got another good team coming in,” Shulman said. “Out of respect for them and our program, it should be a great crowd, I hope it’s a great crowd.”
UTC will try something new and different a little later this month — what the Lookouts have billed as “Business-Man’s Special.”
The Mocs will face Reinhardt College on Tuesday, Dec. 21 at noon in the UTC’s final game before Christmas break. Yes, it’s a game at noon on a weekday.
Games against non-division I opponents are usually the lowest-attended games of the season, so this provided a chance to do something different and play during the day instead of the originally scheduled time of 7 p.m.
“We understand that it may not be well received by everybody, but there was enough interest in a day game that it’s worth trying,” Hart said. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll chalk it up as a failure and learn from it. I’m interested to see what happens. We don’t know what to expect.”
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6484. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.