Unlike most of his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball teammates, Duane Moss donned a Mocs jersey last season and played in some games.
And right when he was getting comfortable in his first season in a college uniform, it ended.
The 6-foot-6, 200-pound redshirt freshman lost all but seven games in his first year after reinjuring a ruptured disk in his back that also took most of his senior year of high school. Watching this season’s team train and practice has only heightened Moss’s desire to get back on the court – although he doesn’t know when that will be.
“It’s so day-to-day to me,” Moss said recently. “I don’t know where the end result is going to lie, because I don’t know how far along I am. It’s just one day at a time; I do the same things, I try to get better every day and some days are worse than others. Those are the days I get (head athletic trainer) Tim (Bream). He’s been amazing. He helps tremendously with this process and will help anyway he can.
“Knowing that I have that backup helping me means a lot.”
Moss averaged 4.9 points and 2.9 rebounds in his seven games last season for the Mocs. He had just started to get into a rhythm, making 11 of his 16 shots in his final five games and 8 of his 10 3-pointers. Then came the Akron game, when with 5:59 to play in the first half, a player came down on his back, re-rupturing the disk. With the added scar tissue, Moss hasn’t been able to heal like he wants to.
But once he does heal, he’s going to be ready to help.
“This year’s team is clicking earlier,” he said. “They’re doing things on the second day of practice that took a lot of coaching for us to get down midway through the season last year, and it’s just natural to them. They’re understanding the offense a lot quicker than I know I expected. I know I came here and it was different for me, but we’ve got some guys that are seeing open areas, making plays and making things happen.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.