ASHEVILLE, N.C. – The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga didn’t just take home all of the hardware from the Southern Conference basketball tournaments at the U.S. Cellular Center over the weekend. Tre’ McLean made sure that he took home every piece of memorabilia possible.
First, there was the sign above the basket that signified that the Mocs men were the 2016 SoCon champions (like the UTC women). It wasn’t nailed down, so it had to go.
“You shouldn’t have let me win if you didn’t want me to act like this,” McLean was heard saying afterward, as he was carrying a ladder from one end of the court to the other to pull the sign down.
Nobody was going to tell him otherwise.
The Mocs (29-5) had reason to celebrate and be a little selfish after Monday night’s game, because it had been their team effort that got them to the highest point in the league. Their 73-67 win over East Tennessee State was far from a thing of beauty, especially in a second half in which they shot only 32 percent from the floor and didn’t make a field goal in the final 4:43.