The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team has enjoyed plenty of success in its current stretch of road games, as the Mocs have won three of the four straight contests they’ve played away from McKenzie Arena since Nov. 21.
With a win tonight, a good run of road games could become great.
The Mocs (5-1) travel to face Louisiana-Monroe (2-2) at 8 EST this evening, which will cap a 10-day stretch in which UTC will have played games in Illinois, Iowa, Florida and Louisiana. The team’s only loss was a 20-point blemish against fourth-ranked Iowa State on Nov. 23.
After tonight, UTC is off until a Dec. 8 home game against Tennessee Wesleyan.
The Mocs won the Emerald Coast Classic’s “Travel Bracket” title Saturday in Niceville, Fla., defeating Jacksonville State 62-52 a day after a 95-58 win over Alabama State. Casey Jones was named to the all-tournament team.
“I think it was huge winning these first two, just for our mindset,” UTC first-year coach Matt McCall said after Saturday’s win. “Being able to win two games in two days, maybe that’s something in years past was difficult to do for us.
“Hopefully down the road this will give us confidence when we’re in situations where we need to win three in three days or two games in four days – whatever it may be, we can revert back to this as a learning point that we’re fully capable of doing it.”
The Mocs also found out they could win in different ways.
The 62 points scored against Jacksonville State was a season-low total, but the Mocs figured out ways to grind out stops, holding the Gamecocks to 40 percent shooting for the game. UTC wasn’t much better, shooting 43 percent from the field, but the Mocs made 11 of 14 free-throw attempts – compared to Jacksonville State’s 6-for-11 performance – and outscored the Gamecocks 17-1 in points from the bench.
Being able to adjust in road games could bode well for the Mocs later.
“We wanted to come in and win the tournament,” center Justin Tuoyo said. “We wanted to play aggressive. You know it’s three games in four days. We did a great job of just focusing on our 14 guys and the coaching staff this weekend.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at @genehenleytfp.