It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
But the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team stubbed its toe entering the halfway point of the Southern Conference season Wednesday, looking sluggish and off in a 16-point home loss to Virginia Military Institute.
The Mocs forced passes; they took bad shots; they didn’t look like the balanced, connected group they’d mostly been through their first 19 games.
Yet the Mocs (15-5, 6-2) expect to be better today when they take on East Tennessee State (16-5, 6-2) at 4 p.m. in Johnson City. UTC has won the last five meetings.
To question whether the Mocs can bounce back from a bad loss, one doesn’t need to look further than last season, Matt McCall’s first as head coach. They suffered a similar fate, losing by six to Western Carolina and looking off – much like they did against VMI this week – but bounced back for a 76-68 win at ETSU two days later.
McCall called Wednesday’s loss the worst performance of his 55-game tenure but reminded that the season is “a grind.”
“The great teams have the ability to get themselves ready for each game, no matter what,” McCall said after the game. “I think we were just trying to get through. We weren’t excited to play. The turnovers have been a problem and were a major problem tonight. It was at an alarming rate. You can’t win games doing that.
“At the end of the day, the game was way more important to VMI tonight. You have to give that team a ton of credit. Our team needs to go through these things to get better and connected. Hopefully this is a wake-up call and we can get better from this. It starts with me.”
UTC will have to play much better this afternoon against an ETSU team that is looking for its first win over the Mocs since rejoining the conference prior to the 2014-15 season. Like the Mocs, the Buccaneers have a win over a Southeastern Conference team – they won 67-65 at Mississippi State on Dec. 14. They have been led by the guard trio of T.J. Cromer, Desonta Bradford and A.J. Merriweather, with Cromer second in the league in scoring at 18.4 points per game.
With six of their final 10 regular-season games on the road, the Mocs’ common catch phrases of “staying connected,” “staying on edge,” “playing for each other” and “playing together” will become even more important, starting with today’s game.
“We have one goal,” senior guard Greg Pryor said. “It’s a marathon. You’re not just going to blow everybody out and get to the goal that you want. There is going to be bumps in the road. We just have to play our hardest and do what we do. Get back to working and fix our issues on the floor and off the floor, and just play Chattanooga basketball.”