ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Demetrius Davis picked a perfect time to have one of the best games of his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball career.
After enduring his share of offensive struggles — the 6-foot-9 senior was 11-of-60 from 3-point range in the regular season — Davis knocked down four of his five tries from long distance in Saturday's Southern Conference tournament quarterfinal against Wofford and finished one point shy of his career high with 19.
In the end, the step-up performance by Davis and a dominant defensive second half for the team allowed the third-seeded Mocs to pull away from the sixth-seeded Terriers for a 75-57 win at the Harrah's Cherokee Center to reach the semifinals.
The Mocs (21-11) will face seventh-seeded East Tennessee State University (18-15) — which upset second-seeded UNC Greensboro in an earlier quarterfinal, 73-62 — at 6:30 p.m. Sunday with a spot in Monday's league championship matchup at stake.
Davis, who celebrated his 23rd birthday Saturday, had scored a combined 19 points in his previous five games.
"Coach (Dan) Earl and my teammates have been telling me to keep my head up," Davis said. "That's what I've been doing, just staying in the gym, just trying to find my shot again."
Added forward Sam Alexis, who finished with 11 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks: "I'm proud of my teammate, my roommate. I'm happy for him. He's been going through a lot this season, having his ups and downs, so I'm proud of what he did today, and hopefully he'll keep it going."
Jan Zidek had 13 points, five rebounds and four assists, while Honor Huff added 12 points and matched Zidek and point guard Trey Bonham's assist total.
Bonham and Huff, the Mocs' all-conference guard duo, were limited to 5-for-22 shooting, but UTC managed with contributions all over the court as freshman Noah Melson came off the bench and knocked down a pair of 3s for six points while Randy Brady grabbed six rebounds and knocked down a second-half 3-pointer.
The Mocs employed their "See, Share, Shoot" mentality offensively and finished with 17 assists on 24 made field goals.
"There are times it's hard as a coach, because we will fire away," said Earl, who led the Mocs to the SoCon title game a year ago to cap his first season as their head coach. "There's a balance between having confidence, like Sam tonight took two 3s, and there's a little bit of like, 'Whoa, whoa, all right, good shot.'
"But tonight, Demetrius Davis had the confidence, and he stepped up and knocked them down, so I think that it's kind of fun to play in an offense where if you're open, you get to shoot the ball. I would hope that they would say that they probably don't get as many shots as they'd like sometimes, but it hopefully gives us confidence and different guys can step up at different times."
The Mocs led for the final 30 minutes and 18 seconds of the contest, taking a 38-32 lead into the locker room at halftime and then pulling away with balanced offense and a dominant defense that limited the Terriers to 27% shooting in the final 20 minutes.
Corey Tripp led the Terriers (17-15) with 15 points but was 6-for-22 from the floor, while Jeremy Lorenz scored 12 and Kyler Filewich had nine with eight rebounds, four assists and two steals.
"We can be great when we're engaged on defense, because on offense you can always rely on guys to make shots, but when everybody's engaged on defense and we compete, talking on defense, I think we are at our best," Zidek said. "It translates to our offense as well, because if you play defense with energy, you play better offense, too."
Sunday's first semifinal, set for 4 p.m., has top-seeded Samford (27-5) taking on fifth-seeded Furman (16-16).
Samford beat eighth-seeded Mercer 70-57 in Saturday's first quarterfinal, while Furman upset No. 4 seed Western Carolina 79-76 in overtime in the final game of the night.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.