Despite a disappointing 4-8 start to its season, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team has done no irreparable damage to its pursuit of a 12th straight Southern Conference championship.
The Lady Mocs are 1-2 so far in SoCon play and host Wofford (5-5, 1-1) this afternoon in the first of 17 consecutive league games to close out the regular season. Today’s game is the first of four at McKenzie Arena during the next 10 days.
“It is going to be nice to be at home, but this is an important stretch,” UTC coach Wes Moore said. “At home you’ve got to hold serve and that’s going to be hard to do.”
The Lady Mocs snapped a four-game losing streak Thursday with a 66-61 win at Belmont to close out UTC’s non-conference schedule. Three of its eight losses were to ranked teams and five were by 10 points or less.
Based on non-conference play, Samford and Appalachian State have looked like the class of the league to this point. The Bulldogs were the preseason pick to win the SoCon and they are 9-3 overall, 2-1 in league play. The Mountaineers, picked second, are 8-3, 2-1 in the SoCon.
The only team without a league loss is UNC-Greensboro (5-5), which improved to 3-0 with a New Year’s Eve win over Davidson.
“I think the conference is a lot better – I definitely believe that,” Samford coach Mike Morris said.
Moore agreed.
“I really feel like anybody on a given night can beat anybody else,” he said. “In this league, especially the way the parity is, you better show up to play.”
Because the Lady Mocs have been so dominant for so long, they’re not likely to inspire much sympathy from within the league as UTC goes through a rebuilding year.
“I told Wes at the beginning of the year, I won’t be crying for him at all until I see the end results,” said College of Charleston coach Nancy Wilson, whose Cougars handed UTC one of its two SoCon defeats. “He’s such a great coach and he’s got some good players, so he could come on and smack everybody.”
The Lady Mocs’ roster features six freshmen, four sophomores and three juniors. Of the juniors, only point guard Tenisha Townsend played last season. With a lot of new faces and some familiar ones in different roles, UTC remains a work in progress.
Samford has finished second behind UTC the past two seasons and Morris isn’t about to write off the Lady Mocs’ chances.
“I think they’ll be there [at the end],” Morris said. “I think when it’s all said and done down the stretch, and in the last five or six conference games, I think Chattanooga will be around, I really do.”