The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team has won the last seven Southern Conference tournaments played away from McKenzie Arena. Fortunately for the Lady Mocs, this week’s SoCon tourney is being played in Charlotte.
Thanks to its 92-62 thumping of Samford on Saturday in its regular-season finale, the UTC is the No. 1 seed. The Lady Mocs (21-8, 16-4) will play next Friday in the second game of the morning session at Bojangles Coliseum. UTC will play the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 8 Western Carolina (7-22, 6-14) and No. 9 UNC Greensboro (9-19, 6-14).
The Lady Mocs swept the Spartans and split their games with the Catamounts — both Western Carolina games were decided by 2 points.
“I don’t think there’s an easy way to go about it,” Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore said of the draw. “Obviously Western Carolina and UNC Greensboro are both very competitive teams, so that will be a challenge regardless of which team we face.”
The challenge will only get harder from there with either No. 4 College of Charleston (19-10, 13-7) or No. 5 Georgia Southern (18-11, 13-7) waiting for the Lady Mocs, should they advance, at noon next Sunday at Time Warner Cable Arena.
With the top seed in the tournament on the line, the Lady Mocs played perhaps their best game of the season Saturday against Samford, which drilled UTC 74-52 on Nov. 30. The Lady Mocs shot 57.7 percent from the field, had five players score in double figures and outscored the Bulldogs 33-11 during the final 10:20.
At the end of January, there were as many as five teams that still had a shot at the SoCon championship. The Lady Mocs held off the field for their 11th consecutive title, but that amount of parity makes Moore nervous heading into the tournament.
“When you start looking, there are five or six teams in this league that are capable of winning the tournament,” he said. “And really, any of them in this league are capable of beating you on a given day.”