Honor Huff knows that one of the things about being a shooter is that if you've put the practice in, you have to be willing to have a bad performance from time to time.
"It shouldn't matter if you go 0-for-10, you shouldn't stop shooting," the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sophomore guard said. "My dad (Carlton) would tell me that if I stopped shooting, he'd be mad — not if I went 0-for-10."
Huff's mentality was only strengthened by the hard work he put in during the offseason, and on Thursday night it resulted in one of the best shooting performances by a UTC player in some time.
Huff tied a program record with nine 3-pointers and totaled 31 points in the Mocs' 84-71 win over Southern Conference rival East Tennessee State University at McKenzie Arena, with UTC sweeping the regular-season series against the Buccaneers after winning 81-74 on Jan. 21 in Johnson City. UTC has won three in a row and five of the past six meetings with the Bucs to push its all-time lead in the series to 52-39.
As for the big picture this season, the Mocs (18-8, 10-3) were able to maintain their one-game lead over UNC Greensboro for second place in the SoCon standings with five games remaining before the league tournament next month in Asheville, North Carolina. They also did so with an offensive performance that, while great, paled in comparison to Saturday's performance during their 89-61 win at UNCG.
Still, UTC made 16 3-pointers against the Bucs — who fell to 13-13, 5-8 in their first season with former Mocs assistant Brooks Savage as head coach — and shot 53% from the field, improving to 11-0 this season in games in which they made more than half of their shots.
UTC coach Dan Earl admitted a bit of fear of a letdown after Saturday's stellar showing against the Spartans, but the Mocs started off quickly and then finished the first half on a 15-2 spurt to take a 45-30 lead into the locker room.
"We've been fortunate enough to get a couple of these wins over the road," Earl said. "Human nature sometimes tells you or people around the guys say, 'Hey, we beat them on the road. We should beat them at home,' and that's not the way this thing works. Having our guys still locked in, having them still hungry, we've made tremendous progress from the beginning of the year, but there's still a ton to get better on, and at times tonight, we didn't get better, but I thought we were locked in.
"We handled it well enough to get this good win against ETSU, but I'll be nervous about it next game out, so that doesn't stop."
Ebby Asamoah's 3-pointer pulled the visitors within six points of UTC at 64-58 with 7:08 remaining in the second half, and a layup by ETSU's Jadyn Parker made it 70-61 with 5:12 to play, but a Trey Bonham jumper on the other end followed to push the Mocs' lead back to double digits — and it stayed that way.
The Bucs were paced by 22 points from Quimari Peterson, who shot 4-for-6 from 3-point range, and they got 19 points with six rebounds from Jaden Seymour. Maki Johnson added 11 points.
Bonham finished with 14 points, eight assists and four rebounds for the Mocs, while Tyler Millin added 12 points and six rebounds. Sam Alexis grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and added four assists, Myles Che scored seven points, and Chattanooga native Randy Brady had six points, six rebounds and four assists.
The Mocs improved to 12-5 since the addition of Bonham, a two-time transfer, prior to the Alabama A&M game on Dec. 16. Bonham scored 31 points at UNCG, the most by a UTC player this season, only for Huff to match him Wednesday night — a good sign that neither has to carry the load all the time.
"I think the stretch of games we've had, we're starting to click and the camaraderie in the locker room on the court is just building in ways you only can talk about," Huff said. "I think Trey coming back created a little bit of uncertainty about people's roles and playing time, and I think in this stretch we're trying to figure it out; everyone's trying to figure out their role and what they can bring to the table with Trey being added.
"I think our camaraderie on the court, we're starting to figure things out, and I think we're going to be a scary team coming into the (SoCon) tournament."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.