Wiedmer: McCall truly prepared for tourney basketball

UTC men's basketball coach Matt McCall is taking the Mocs to the SoCon tournament for the first time, but he can count on his tenure as an assistant with the Florida Gators in the SEC and NCAA tournaments as valuable experience for this week's trip to Asheville, N.C. The Mocs are seeded No. 1 and won't play until Saturday's quarterfinals. UTC men's basketball coach Matt McCall is taking the Mocs to the SoCon tournament for the first time, but he can count on his tenure as an assistant with the Florida Gators in the SEC and NCAA tournaments as valuable experience for this week's trip to Asheville, N.C. The Mocs are seeded No. 1 and won't play until Saturday's quarterfinals.

By Mark Wiedmer March 3, 2016 5 min read

Mark Wiedmer

The hotel room’s clock showed 3 a.m. In less than 19 hours, the Florida Gators would face Ohio State in the 2007 men’s basketball national championship game inside the Georgia Dome. Win, and the Gators would become the first school since Duke in 1991 and 1992 to repeat as NCAA champions.

Having watched hour upon hour of video on the Buckeyes, young Gators assistant Matt McCall expected head coach Billy Donovan to finally send the assistants off to bed in the wee, small hours of that April 2 morning.

Instead, Donovan looked at McCall and said: “Matt, let’s play that Illinois-Ohio State (game) tape one more time.”

Maybe that last bit of study turned the tide, maybe it didn’t – but the Gators did chomp down on the Buckeyes 84-75 a few hours later.

Of course, that same Matt McCall is now the head coach for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball program; he’s also the just-named Southern Conference coach of the year in his first season on the job.