The sting from Saturday night’s loss to Oklahoma State will linger for a while, a long while, with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team.
“When you’ve got an 18-point lead at halftime, it makes it hard to swallow,” UTC coach Wes Moore said.
Up 37-19 at the half in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Tempe, Ariz., the 13th-seeded Lady Mocs were overwhelmed by fourth-seeded Oklahoma State’s defense in the final 20 minutes. The big lead was quickly gone as UTC struggled to handle both the Cowgirls’ full-court pressure and the mental pressure of the moment.
The Lady Mocs committed 17 second-half turnovers. Still, they were only down one point with 3:20 to play, but Oklahoma State closed the game on an 8-2 run to pull out a 70-63 win.
“They turned up the heat, and that’s what we’ve had trouble with — against Georgia, against Kentucky,” Moore said Monday. “They turned everything up a notch or two, and we just didn’t handle it well.”
Two-time Southern Conference player of the year Shanara Hollinquest closed out her stellar UTC career with 14 points and 11 rebounds — her 18th double-double of the season.
Hollinquest said Monday that the previous 48 hours had been tough. Again and again, just like her coach, she thought about the second half and what went wrong.
“I replay the turnovers. I missed a couple of free throws. There’s a lot of things you wish you could take back and do over,” said Hollinquest, who hopes to play professionally after she graduates. “I think probably in about a week or so I might get over it a little bit and start focusing on the next level and what’s going on with me.”
Despite a 24-9 record, an 11th consecutive SoCon regular-season championship, an 11th straight 20-win season and the program’s eighth trip to the NCAA tournament in 10 seasons, this season was a bumpy ride. Moore said often that it was the toughest season of his 12 at UTC.
The Lady Mocs battled injuries and inexperience all season, lost five of their first seven games, yet reached all of their goals except advancing in the NCAA tournament.
“We started off real rough, and I don’t think anybody expected us to accomplish what we did,” Hollinquest said. “I think just going through the season and setting goals and making those goals, one at a time, will stand out the most.”
Four of the seven Lady Mocs who played against Oklahoma State were freshmen: starters Kayla Christopher and Michelle Davis and reserves Erin Helton and Kylie Lambert. The other players were seniors Jenaya Wade-Fray and Hollinquest and sophomore Tenisha Townsend.
For the young players, Christopher said, the game was a valuable experience.
“I think we can learn a lot from it if we try to,” said Christopher, who led UTC with 15 points. “We pretty much just lose Shanara and Jenaya, so the rest of us can take a lot from it. I think we just lost our composure, so I think we can learn that whenever we have a team down by that many, just to keep going.”
Along with the underclassmen, the Lady Mocs are expected to return Bailey Dewart and Capriee Tucker, who redshirted this season with knee injuries, and Whitney Hood will be eligible after transferring from Clemson.