On the surface, Saturday's 62-47 win by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team over visiting King University was impressive.
Sure, the Tornado are a NCAA Division II program, but the Mocs (5-3) led from the start, built an early double-digit lead and never were really threatened in their third game — and third win — in six days. For coach Shawn Poppie, though, the results did not meet his expectations.
While UTC's starters put up strong numbers again — Yazz Wazeerud-Din with 15 points; Abbey Cornelius with 12 points and 12 rebounds; Addie Porter with 11 points, five rebounds and seven assists; fab freshman Raven Thompson with 16 rebounds and nine points — a bench that hasn't had the opportunity to show what it can do didn't shine when it got the chance Saturday.
King's reserves, in fact, outscored the Mocs' 30-9.
"We have to get some more depth," Poppie said. "We are asking too much out of that starting five. I was, honestly, very disappointed in my bench. They had the opportunity, for the first time in a while, to show something, but they did not take advantage of it."
With games against Georgia State, Alabama and Tennessee over the next 10 days, Poppie knows his team will need all hands on deck.
"We are going to have to keep trying to develop them because we are going to need some help coming off the bench," Poppie said.
The Mocs jumped out to a 14-3 lead in the first six minutes as Porter scored the game's first four points, with Sigrun Olafsdottir following with a three-point play and Cornelius a layup. Wazeerud-Din added a 3-pointer before Porter closed the run out with a drive.
The Tornado (1-5), though, went on an 11-4 run capped by Michelle Gallegos' 3 to cut the lead to four in the first minute of the second period. Brooke Hampel answered with a three-point play to regain momentum for the Mocs, who stretched the lead back to 11 on Thompson's 3, 28-17.
The Mocs led in nearly every statistical category, including 14-6 in assists, 7-3 in steals and 42-37 in rebounding as Thompson again did her thing inside.
"Raven has done a heck of a job, especially this last week in general rebounding the ball," Poppie said. "It would have been nice for her to make a free throw or a couple more layups there to get a double-double.
"She's a worker, she's all in. From where she came from to where she is now is pretty remarkable. I'm super excited if she stays the path, she can be a pretty good player for us."
The visitors from Bristol, led by Le'Aije Eliington's 10 points, would not get within nine the rest of the way.
UTC faces Georgia State (4-4) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in Atlanta.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.