About an hour after Monday night’s win over Davidson, Wes Moore and his coaching staff were crowded together in his office watching the game video and munching on pizza.
There was no big celebration after the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team learned it had clinched at least a share of its 11th consecutive Southern Conference championship with its win over Davidson and Appalachian State’s win at Samford.
Moore, in his 12th season at UTC, was appreciative of the achievement – the Lady Mocs also clinched an 11th straight 20-win season Monday – but he also stressed that there is much more work to be done.
“(The players) deserve all the credit – they’ve put in all the work and had to put up with me and everything else,” Moore said late Monday night. “But, as we just talked about in the office, we haven’t really accomplished anything yet.
“It’s nice – 20 wins is nice; being in a position to have a share of the regular season is great – but we’ve got other goals and we want to keep working hard and getting better, and hopefully still play our best basketball in March.”
The Lady Mocs (20-7, 15-3) have a two-game lead in the standings with two games remaining (Monday at Western Carolina and Feb. 27 against Samford). If they win one of their final two games, the Lady Mocs will win the SoCon title outright and earn the No. 1 seed in next month’s conference tournament.
Should UTC lose its last two games – the Lady Mocs haven’t lost back-to-back league games since the 2001-02 season – then the No. 1 seed is up for grabs. Once again, the No. 2 seed will play at 9 a.m. on day two of the tournament.
If UTC were to lose its last two games, Samford, the College of Charleston and Appalachian State would all have a shot at sharing the regular-season title by winning their remaining games. According to the SoCon, the Lady Mocs will be either a No. 1 or 2 seed regardless of what happens.