The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team has been here once already this season, and things didn’t go as planned last time.
Three weeks ago, the Mocs were riding high after beating then-No. 4 Tennessee 67-63 at McKenzie Arena, but they stumbled in their next game and lost 57-52 at Arkansas State to take some of the shine off perhaps the biggest win in program history.
UTC is again the talk of the women’s college basketball world after another big upset in Wednesday’s 54-46 home win over No. 7 Stanford, and again the Mocs are getting ready to take on a less-heralded team in Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference program Morgan State today at 4 p.m. as part of the two-day Chattanooga Christmas Classic.
Tennessee Tech and North Carolina A&T will play today’s 2 p.m. game at McKenzie Arena. Sunday, Morgan State and Tennessee Tech will play at noon, and the Mocs will play North Carolina A&T, also out of the MEAC, at 2.
Unlike after the Tennessee win, the Mocs say they’re going to put this week’s big win behind them and focus on the task at hand this weekend.
“I think since that did happen after the Tennessee game, we’ll be more conscious of it and more aware and more intent on going out and playing hard,” junior guard Alicia Payne said Thursday afternoon before practice. “We should do that after every game; we should always be like that. But now we really don’t want to fall after a big win like (Stanford).”
Payne said that after Wednesday’s win coach Jim Foster told them they still have work to do and cannot overlooki their next opponent.
“I want to make sure we’re ready to play Morgan State,” Foster said. “It gets dangerous when you start to differentiate and you start to label. You need to respect everybody you play. I didn’t think we played the way we needed to play at Arkansas State.
“Having said that, I think through the course of a long season, you build a resume. If you know you can play with some people and you’ve been on the floor with them and you’ve beaten them, I think that bodes well for your basketball team.”
Morgan State (2-8) has lost six straight coming into today’s game, with its only wins coming over Washington Adventist out of the NAIA and NCAA Division III program Wesley College. However, the Bears have single-digit losses to Texas Tech, Norfolk State and Stony Brook.
“We’ve got two more games to focus on, so we have to put that game in the past,” Mocs post player Jasmine Joyner said of the Stanford win. “But it was exciting, though, because it makes history to be a part of a team like this.
“We’ve just got to do a new game plan. We had a game plan just for Stanford, and now we’ll have to have a game plan for Morgan State as well as for North Carolina A&T.”
Complicating the planning for UTC is the loss of sophomore Aryanna Gilbert, who was averaging 7.8 points per game including a 26-point performance in the Mocs’ win over Austin Peay on Nov. 24. Gilbert injured her knee during practice before the Mocs’ win at UT-Martin, and Foster has indicated that she will not return to the lineup this season.
He used only seven players against Stanford, but first-year players Ansley Chilton, Anna Claire Noblit and Sydney Vanlandingham played against UT-Martin. Those players have continued to work to learn Foster’s system in practice and could get more playing time to give the Mocs some depth going forward.
“We have some kids that have been getting better,” Foster said at practice Thursday. “Some of them will be helping us before it’s all over.”
Another benefit of this weekend is to give the Mocs a tournament-like experience with two games in two days, much like they’ll experience during the Southern Conference tournament in March and beyond.
“Coach told us he made the schedule … based around what we’re going to do in March,” Payne said. “We’re going to build some toughness from playing back-to-back games, and building that toughness will help us when we get to March.”
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.