In a game with so many fouls Thursday night coming down to the last possession, Makale Foreman could only defend.
And hope.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sophomore guard scored 22 points and played solid defense on The Citadel’s Matt Frierson, forcing a miss on the last possession to help the Mocs seal an 85-82 Southern Conference victory at McKenzie Arena.
Frierson had 31 points in the Bulldogs’ 110-101 overtime win over UTC in Charleston, S.C., on Jan. 13, but with Foreman harassing him for much of Thursday’s game he scored only nine points on 1-of-10 shooting. He was 1-for-9 from 3-point range.
But on the last play, Frierson took the shot, kicked his feet out and attempted to draw contact. Considering he’d been given that call twice already, there was reason to believe it would happen again. But the refs didn’t blow the whistle, and the Mocs survived after a Frankie Johnson shot from the corner hit off the back iron.
“There’s a little bit of fear, but not much,” Foreman said of guarding Frierson. “You just have to chase hard and try to put a hand up. If they call a foul, they call a foul. You just have to try to get your hand up and affect the shot.”
The Mocs (9-17, 3-10) host Mercer at 5 p.m. Saturday in the second game of a doubleheader, with the UTC women facing East Tennessee State at 2.
Forty-one fouls were called in Thursday’s game, with The Citadel’s Leandro Allende and UTC’s Makinde London fouling out. Four other players finished the game with four fouls.
In addition, the Mocs played without junior guard Nat Dixon, who missed due to coach’s decision. There is no current timetable for his return.
“That’s a situation between Nat and us,” coach Lamont Paris said afterward.
Dixon leads the team in scoring at 14.9 points per game.
The Mocs shot 57 percent from the floor in the win. Foreman again made six 3-pointers. He had 30 points with six 3s in the team’s previous meeting.
London had 16 points, four assists and four rebounds before fouling out, while Joshua Phillips made all five of his shots for 14 points. Rodney Chatman matched Phillips’ total and led UTC in assists (eight), rebounds (six), blocks (three) and steals (two).
In building a 45-35 halftime lead, UTC shot 54 percent from the floor and made 7 of 16 3-point attempts. Foreman had 15 of his points in that first half. The Mocs never trailed in the second half, but nine second-half turnovers were converted into nine points by the Bulldogs, who twice cut the lead to one, the final time on a putback by Kaelon Harris with 43 seconds remaining.
The Mocs went back up three with 18 seconds remaining on a Chatman drive and left-handed finish, and then the UTC defense – which was good all evening – forced the two misses.
Zane Najdawi scored 37 points in the first meeting against the Mocs’ then-undermanned front line but was held to 14 Thursday while battling foul trouble. Harris had 12 points and Quayson Williams 10 for the Bulldogs, who were held to 41 percent shooting after shooting 61 percent in the first meeting.
After an 0-7 start in league play, the Mocs are 3-3 in their last six. And Thursday’s win came against a team that had won three of its last four, with a two-point loss against East Tennessee State that came down to the last possession.
“These guys are competitors. They want to win,” Paris said. “They want to win badly. The guys have made some strides; it doesn’t mean the next time we don’t perform in a couple of situations, but we did perform (tonight). We were on the same page defensively. We were shaky a little bit against the press, but we handled it well overall.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.