During the 2019-20 season, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team played one of the toughest nonconference schedules in the country. The opponents included nine teams ranked in the top 100 of the Rating Percentage Index, which determines the difficulty of a team’s schedule.
The Mocs struggled to a 1-13 start that included an 11-game losing streak heading into Southern Conference play. They appeared to figure something out at that point in Katie Burrows’ second season as coach, going 10-4 against league foes to share the SoCon regular-season title with Samford and UNC Greensboro.
Going into the 2020-21 season, nothing has changed in terms of difficulty regarding the Mocs’ schedule – that philosophy of playing tough competition to get ready for league and postseason play was already in place under former coach Jim Foster, whose staff included Burrows – but there’s a hope and belief something could change in the results.
The Mocs return three of their top five scorers from last season’s 11-18 team, and they have added former Bradley Central standout Anna Walker, University of Missouri-Kansas City transfer Brooke Hampel, junior-college transfer Amaria Pugh and Sigrun Olafsdottir from Iceland.
“They know that each year we are going to battle tough competition, and this year is no different,” Burrows said in a UTC release. “We are hungry and ready to compete for another championship.”