Repeating as Southern Conference tournament champions was already going to be a difficult task for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team.
After Saturday night, it didn’t get much easier.
The Mocs lost 86-74 to Wofford in Spartanburg, South Carolina, finishing Dan Earl’s first regular season as UTC coach at 15-16 overall with a 7-11 mark in the SoCon.
UTC entered Saturday in a three-way tie for fifth place in the standings with the Terriers and East Tennessee State, but those two teams winning pushed the Mocs down to the seventh seed in the Socon tournament and a play-in game against Virginia Military Institute — Earl’s former team — at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
Five players scored in double figures for the Mocs, led by KC Hankton’s 14 points. Demetrius Davis scored 13, while A.J. Caldwell had 12 with nine rebounds, and Brody Robinson and Dalvin White had 11 each and combined for five assists with no turnovers.