Saturday night’s win over Dayton looked and felt eerily familiar to anybody around the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball program.
That’s probably why the Mocs looked so comfortable down the stretch – because they’ve seen that level of adversity on a few occasions this season.
The Mocs (7-2), who host in-state rival Tennessee Tech tonight at 7 at McKenzie Arena, once again built a healthy first-half lead, much as they’d done in road wins against Georgia and Illinois. The home team made a run and took the lead, but UTC found out the way to win the game late.
“This team is built to handle adversity,” first-year Mocs coach Matt McCall said after Saturday’s victory. “We’ve been handling it all year. One of our biggest strengths has been our depth, and I’m proud of the way everyone stepped up and played.
“I really felt like we played the game the right way.”
Georgia’s Bulldogs built a six-point lead over the Mocs in the second half of their game on Nov. 13, but the visitors rallied and won 92-90 in overtime. That game was played without senior forward Duke Ethridge, who had an ankle injury. Starters Casey Jones, Eric Robertson and Tre’ McLean fouled out, and three others finished with four fouls each in the win.
On Nov. 21, the Illini had a nine-point lead with 6:26 to play, but UTC finished on a 21-8 run for a four-point win. On Saturday, Dayton erased a five-point halftime deficit with a 13-2 run to start the second half, but the Mocs remained close and won the game on two Greg Pryor free throws with 5.3 seconds to play.
“We knew we’d been here before,” McLean said. “At Georgia, at Illinois – teams come back. Basketball is a game of runs, but we have a veteran group and we understand that teams are going to make runs, but we have to stick with it and be the more together team.
“We had to stick with it, and that’s what we did tonight.”
Jones, the team leader in scoring, rebounding and assists, suffered a severe ankle injury on Friday and missed the Dayton game. He is listed as out “indefinitely.”
“We have a veteran team, a competitive team,” McCall said after Saturday’s game. “I don’t think any of the guys are saying, ‘How are we going to win without Casey?’ I think they were genuinely concerned about Casey’s health and his career going forward. He’s their brother and you never want to see your brother hurt, and that was their concern, but they were excited to play tonight and just went out and played.”
Road warriors
Seven of the Mocs’ first nine games have been on the road, so if there is an atmosphere that has been foreign to the team, it might be the environment at McKenzie Arena, where they will play their next three games.
For only the third time this year, most of the fans in the crowd will be cheering for UTC.
“It’s kind of weird having people cheering for us,” McLean said. “I’m going to be happy to be back in Chattanooga; I don’t have to stay in hotels anymore.”
Pryor admitted that the pregame atmosphere felt a little different last week when UTC hosted NAIA member Tennessee Wesleyan, which stopped a streak of five consecutive road games. He encouraged the fans to come out to tonight’s game against the Golden Eagles, who defeated the Mocs 69-67 a season ago. UTC squandered a 16-point second-half lead in that loss.
Tickets for tonight’s game are only $2 and will be the same Friday when UTC faces Kennesaw State.
“We hope to have a big crowd and hope to get a lot of fan support for our city,” Pryor said. “We know the students are home for Christmas break, but we would like our city to come out and support us.
“It would give us a lot of confidence going into the conference season.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.