A.J. Caldwell transferred from South Alabama to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga four years ago, suiting up for the Mocs in their second season with Lamont Paris as coach. A year later, Grant Ledford and Jamaal Walker joined Caldwell.
Now those three players are the pillars of a new-look Mocs basketball program trying to repeat as Southern Conference champion.
In the current landscape of college athletics, offseason change is to be expected. UTC was mostly spared of any drastic shakeups the past couple of years, but after sweeping the SoCon regular-season and tournament titles last season for the program’s first NCAA tournament berth since 2016, that wasn’t the case.
Paris departed for South Carolina, five seniors graduated and four other players transferred, including SoCon player of the year Malachi Smith leaving for national power Gonzaga.
Dan Earl was hired to replace Paris, and the former Virginia Military Institute coach replenished UTC’s roster with eight new players. Such turnover could be catastrophic, but with NCAA rules now allowing teams to come together sooner, the vast majority of UTC’s 2022-23 roster was able to start working with each other in the summer.