Alicia Payne is still in a position to help the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team on the court.
Just not physically. In a game.
And that’s going to be a big adjustment for the Mocs.
In the last two games – winnable ones against ranked teams going into the final quarter – the Mocs have allowed Florida to shoot 8-for-10 from the field and Indiana to shoot 8-for-12. The combined 73 percent shooting for the two opponents led to close victories at McKenzie Arena against the Mocs, who are 1-2 heading into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame Challenge today through Monday in Louisville, Ky.
Payne, a two-time Southern Conference defensive player of the year and last season’s tournament most valuable player, is now a graduate assistant with the program, so her ball-hawking skills are no longer available on the court. The Mocs must find different ways to find stops down the stretch, and their inability to do so was the difference in the last two games.
“For us it’s a matter of people stepping up and becoming more accountable within the framework of what we want to do themselves,” UTC coach Jim Foster said Thursday. “We had five and a half defensive players for the last three years. Red (Payne) was a player and a half: She would run around and make things happen, she would hide people’s weaknesses, where we can’t hide. We’ve got to step up and we’ve got to get better.
“We’ve got to take that responsibility thinking somebody is going to be there for us. We’re there; we’re the ones that have to come up with those stops; we’re the ones that have to get our box-outs.”
But as Foster has said on a number of occasions, that’s why he’s playing an early-season schedule with three of the first six games against ranked opponents. After facing Lafayette College this afternoon at 2 and Bowling Green on Sunday at 2, the Mocs will challenge fifth-ranked host Louisville at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Foster wants opponents to be able to expose any issues in his team before conference play and before the postseason, so that when similar situations arise in February and March, the Mocs will be prepared.
“This is going to make us tougher to face opponents we’ll face in the postseason,” junior guard Keiana Gilbert said. “We’ll learn from these games.”