The regular season is about to enter its final month, but Takia Davis is finally starting to round into the player that first-year University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach Shawn Poppie envisioned her to be.
The 6-foot-2 sophomore forward and former Calhoun County (Georgia) standout played a season-high 16 minutes Thursday night at McKenzie Arena in the Mocs’ wire-to-wire 67-46 win over UNC Greensboro — probably UTC’s best effort of the season — and finished with eight points and three rebounds.
The Mocs are now 12-9 overall and 4-2 in the Southern Conference, and they’ll play the second of three consecutive home games when they host Western Carolina (8-13, 1-5) at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Catamounts lost 70-39 on Thursday at East Tennessee State, which will close out UTC’s current homestand on Feb. 4 and lost 53-50 to the Mocs on Jan. 5 in Johnson City.
It had taken Davis a while to earn the trust of Poppie, who preaches the importance of solid practice habits. Having bought in, she was rewarded with the additional playing time.
“Tonight was nice. I felt more free out there, like I was myself,” Davis said. “Coach Poppie lets me be that a lot — myself; he doesn’t say what I can and can’t do. He just tells me to play hard. He knows I’m going to do that anyway, but I need to hear that in my mind and it’s locked in.”