The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team concluded its regular season with a 68-65 loss to Virginia Military Institute on Sunday at Cameron Hall in Lexington, Va.
With the loss, the Mocs (9-21, 3-15 Southern Conference) fell to the No. 10 seed in this week’s conference tournament. They will face Samford in a first-round game at 7:30 p.m. Friday at U.S. Cellular Center in Asheville, N.C.
The Mocs trailed by 17 points in the second half before mounting a comeback, with Makinde London’s 3-pointer with 1:24 to play cutting the Keydets’ lead to 66-65. But the Mocs – as they did in the season’s first meeting with VMI – allowed a pair of offensive rebounds to stretch the Keydets’ next possession out.
London then stole the ball from Austin Vereen with 12 seconds remaining, but he turned it over after losing control on a spin move, with the ball hitting off of one of his feet before going out of bounds. The Keydets’ Garrett Gilkeson was fouled and hit both free throws, and a London 3-point try at the buzzer glanced off the side rim.
“We have to come out with more energy and intensity at the start of the game so we won’t be in these type of situations towards the end of the game,” sophomore guard Makale Foreman said on UTC’s postgame radio broadcast. “We just have to always play hard and come out with better energy so we can have a better chance at the end of the game.