Mercer guard Ike Nwamu (10) moves the ball against Duke forward Amile Jefferson (21) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball second-round game on Friday, March 21, 2014, in Raleigh, N.C.For a day, Mercer University was the Cinderella of the 2014 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, when the Bears defeated Duke 78-71. They lost eight seniors off that team, however, and then made a transition from the Atlantic Sun Conference to the Southern Conference.
Even with all the newness, the success rate has remained familiar.
The Bears enter Thursday’s home SoCon showdown against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with an 11-10 record and a 6-2 mark against conference competition. The infusion of new guys with the few returning ones might have taken some time, but under the direction of coach Bob Hoffman, Mercer is right in the hunt for a conference title in its initial SoCon season.
The Bears’ record includes losses to Seton Hall, Colorado State, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas A&M.
“We believe that we can win on any given night,” Hoffman said. “We didn’t win some of those early-season games, but we were in them.
“It shows a lot of what we could do after losing those guys from last year. The guys are trying hard to get to that level, but when it’s all said and done, we think we can be right there.”
The Bears have been described as a “machine” on offense. They shoot 52.7 percent from 2-point range and 40.6 percent from 3 and have outscored SoCon opponents by 10.1 points per game, which is tops in the conference.
One of the holdovers, forward Ike Nwamu, leads the team with 15.9 points per game, which ranks eighth in the league. If anybody thought the Bears would take a step back after last season, don’t count UTC coach Will Wade among them.
“I knew they’d be really good,” he said. “They had other good players behind those guys, and they recruit well, develop and redshirt guys they need to.
“(Hoffman) is a great offensive coach. I didn’t expect them to fall off the face of the earth; I knew they’d be really good.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.