Arguably the biggest University of Tennessee at Chattanooga fan anywhere, Bob Mulkey left his Huntsville, Ala., residence Saturday afternoon with his wife, Treece, determined to watch the men Mocs’ final home basketball game of the year — snow, ice and rain be darned.
“Senior night, a chance to see us win 20 games for the first time in a long time, we just couldn’t miss this,” Mulkey said at the close of UTC’s 67-59 win over East Tennessee State. “We’ve been mediocre for far too long.”
The stat began circulating in press releases and social media before the weekend began. Not since 1993-94 had the UTC men won as many as 20 games in the regular season. Not the 1997 Sweet Sixteen squad (19 wins). Neither of John Shulman’s NCAA tourney teams (17 and 15, respectively). Not Jeff Lebo during his first season (19).
It’s almost unfathomable, actually. With Marshall and Davidson no longer in the Southern Conference, there’s no argument that the league’s richest tradition falls to UTC. For better or worse, the Mocs’ history makes them the Kentucky, Duke or Indiana of the SoCon. In other words, the program that all others are measured against.
Yet while Kentucky has won at least 20 regular-season games all but two seasons since 1994, Duke also has won at least 20 all but twice and even Indiana — the most vulnerable of those three — has won at least 20 games 11 times, the Mocs repeatedly have come up short.
UTC forward Justin Tuoyo, right, dunks over ETSU’s Jalen Riley and teammate Casey Jones (24) during the Mocs’ Senior Night SoCon basketball game against the ETSU Buccaneers on Feb. 21, 2015, at McKenzie Arena.It even got the attention of the current Mocs long before this season began.
“We made it a team goal during the summer,” said senior Ronrico White, who made his last start inside McKenzie Arena more than a little memorable by scoring a team-high 20 points. “It was important to us.”
It could be important to the program growing forward.
“It’s a significant number, a magic number,” said second-year head coach Will Wade. “When you look at this job from afar, it’s such an attractive job, you think all they do is win, and win, and win. So it’s a little surprising that it’s been so long.”
But Wade also said something that must not be ignored, his observation based on the increasing pressure placed on low-to-mid-major programs to generate revenue through guaranteed losses, oops, games.
“(Twenty wins) is harder to do at this level,” he said.
The schedules support his theory. Look across the past 20 years and you’ll see that the Mocs played at Alabama (twice), Butler, Ohio State (twice), Tennessee (four times), Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Florida (during the Gators’ second consecutive national championship season in 2007), Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky (twice), Kansas, Indiana (twice), Louisville, LSU, Missouri, Penn State, Purdue and UCLA.
They even played Creighton, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Memphis, Michigan (three times), Ohio State (three times), Penn State, Purdue and UT inside the Roundhouse, going 3-5 against those eight.
And, of course, in December of 2004 they shocked the Vols inside Thompson-Boling Arena, arguably the best UTC regular-season win of the past 11 years.
Point is, without those games, the Mocs might have won 20 regular-season games in 1995, 1997 and 2008 and last season. Instead, they took one for the team, or rather the entire athletic department, losing games to give the budget a chance to succeed.
In one sense, this all means nothing. Twenty wins won’t earn the Mocs their first NCAA tourney berth since 2009. It’s not even likely to hand them their first NIT bid since 1987.
But with both potential recruits and current fans, it means much. It means the mediocrity is banished. It means the bar has been raised. It means that this improving program set a goal in the summer that it was able to reach in the winter.
“They’re not going to stop the season because we’ve won 20,” Wade joked Saturday night.
And they shouldn’t. Not with two regular-season road games remaining at VMI and UNC Greensboro, plus the SoCon tourney in Asheville.
But that doesn’t mean Moc Maniacs everywhere shouldn’t pause for at least a moment to celebrate an end to mediocrity for the SoCon’s most storied men’s basketball program.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.