Stopping rival East Tennessee State University from getting going on offense kept the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team moving toward the No. 1 seed for the Southern Conference tournament.
UTC picked up a big road win Saturday, beating the Buccaneers 56-41 at Brooks Gymnasium in Johnson City to improve to 22-3 overall and 10-0 against SoCon opponents with four games remaining in the regular season.
Coupled with Furman’s 64-51 upset of second-place Wofford (15-9, 7-3) this past week, it gives the Mocs the opportunity to clinch at least a tie for the league’s regular-season championship with a home win Thursday against last-place Western Carolina. Tipoff in that matchup is set for 7 p.m. at McKenzie Arena.
UTC won the SoCon tournament last year in Shawn Poppie’s first season as coach, but the Mocs did so as the No. 2 seed after finishing behind Wofford in the standings.
This season’s Mocs have won 11 straight games — their longest streak since a run of the same length in 2015-16 — but the latest one didn’t start off pretty. In fact, there wasn’t much pretty about the visitors’ performance except the final score and the play of senior Jada Guinn, who finished with 19 points and 16 rebounds. The Bucs had no answer for the 5-foot-9 guard as she shot 9-for-16 from the field, but the rest of the Mocs were a combined 9-for-38.