UTC women’s basketball players celebrate getting to go to the Big Dance after pulling out a one-point victory over Davidson in the Southern Conference tournament final Monday in Asheville, N.C.ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Offensive rebounding kept the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the game. Offensive rebounding and a Kayla Christopher putback with 8.2 seconds left earned the Lady Mocs another championship.
The Lady Mocs trailed Davidson for most of Monday’s Southern Conference women’s basketball tournament final at the U.S. Cellular Center. Their only lead in the second half came on Christopher’s tip-in, which provided the difference in a 64-63 victory and followed UTC’s third offensive rebound in about four seconds.
“The last thing I said [before the play] was ‘Crash, crash, crash.’ … I wasn’t even sure how much time was left, so I just tipped it in,” said Christopher, who along with fellow senior Kylie Lambert won SoCon regular-season and tournament titles as freshmen and seniors.
Second chances were the difference for top-seeded UTC, which had 21 offensive rebounds to Davidson’s six and outscored the No. 2-seeded Wildcats 23-6 on second-chance points.
UTC (29-3) tied a program record for wins. and Monday’s was the Lady Mocs’ 19th in a row. UTC improved to 14-0 all-time in SoCon tournament title games, 9-0 under coach Wes Moore, and is headed back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010.