The 3-point defense of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team let it down in the second half of Monday’s 73-68 loss at UNCG.
They’ll need to have that fixed by tonight.
Wofford (6-9, 1-1) comes to town for the first of three consecutive Mocs’ Southern Conference home games, and will present a different sort of challenge as they have big, physical post players that set bruising screens on opposing guards in hopes of freeing up shooters like four-year starting point guard Eric Garcia and sophomore wing Fletcher Magee, who have combined to hit 81 3s this season.
As a team, the Terriers average 9.4 3-pointers made per game while shooting a league-best 41 percent from long range. The Mocs (10-4, 1-1) are third in the league in 3-point percentage defense at 31.4 percent. The Spartans made only 7 of their 19 attempts, but were 4-10 in the second half, led by Francis Alonso, who made three 3s and had 22 of his game-high 26 points in the second half.
“Up until the Greensboro game that’s something we’ve been terrific at,” UTC head coach Matt McCall said of the 3-point defense. “For whatever reason in the game we weren’t great against Greensboro, and any time a team can make that many 3s, it’s gonna be a difficult night.”
Magee made seven 3-pointers earlier this season against Coastal Carolina, while Garcia made six against Georgia Tech.
In his last four games, Garcia is averaging 26 points and 6.8 assists and has made 16 of his 28 3-point attempts. So far this season the pair has shot 45 percent from 3-point range.
“We’ve gotta make sure the 3s that Fletcher takes are very, very difficult and challenged,” said McCall, who knows of Magee from University of Florida camps. “The second you relax and turn your head, they’re so good at moving without the ball that they’re gonna get shots off.”
The Mocs know about Wofford’s 3-point shooters – past and present. Two seasons ago at McKenzie Arena, former Terrier Karl Cochran scored 27 second-half points and made all six of his 3-point attempts in a comeback victory over the Mocs, their only win over UTC in the past three seasons.
UTC point guard Greg Pryor, now a senior, was hobbled in that game from getting hit by so many screens and had to miss the next two games as a result, so the post players know they have to do their part to help the guards out defensively.
“We’ve gotta call it (the screen) out early,” center Justin Tuoyo said. “We know going in that they set great screens, so we’ve gotta call it out early so they can avoid it the best they can.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.