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."
UTC, which was coming off Saturday's 51-44 double-overtime victory at Furman, won consecutive league games for the first time this season. The Mocs' most recent back-to-back victories had been in mid-December, on the road against North Alabama and Ohio.
They didn't shoot it great against UNCG, but they dominated in the paint with 46 points there Thursday.
Yazz Wazeerud-Din had a game-high 19 points for UTC, along with three blocks and two steals, and Sigrun Olafsdottir scored 10 of her 12 points in the first quarter. Abbey Cornelius and Raven Thompson finished with nine points each — Cornelius had six rebounds and Thompson grabbed eight — and Addie Porter had six points, seven rebounds and three assists.
The extra Davis minutes came as a result of a pair of first-quarter fouls on Cornelius, the second coming five minutes into the game. Davis immediately made an impact with consecutive layups to put the Mocs up 12-5, then chipped in four more points in the second quarter off a pair of putbacks as UTC took a 10-point lead into the locker room at halftime.
The Spartans (10-10, 3-3) had a third-quarter run to cut the lead to 41-35, but the Mocs answered, stretching their advantage to as many as 21 points in the final period. Nitzan Amar and Akira Wiggins each scored 12 points for UNCG, which was outrebounded 40-31 and scored just 22 points in the paint.
"I thought Takia Davis was phenomenal," Poppie said. "It's taken a while for her to understand our concepts and our defensive scouting report, and it was hard to play her because we struggled so much offensively that we had to defend to have a chance. I just kept encouraging her to keep learning because I knew we'd need her and I think she can be a good player.
"I thought she was as locked in as she's been all year. If she didn't know, she was asking questions and she was engaged. She didn't look lost and got to play free. I hope she can be that this Saturday and next Saturday, because that's a big spark off the bench."
Compiled by Gene Henley. Contact him at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.