To date, the season hasn’t gone as expected for Billy Smith and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team.
But in some respects, the season is just about to start.
The Mocs (6-7) start Southern Conference competition Thursday afternoon, traveling to UNC Greensboro as part of a two-game road trip to start league play. The defending regular-season champions play the Spartans at 4 before heading to Virginia Military Institute at 1 on Saturday.
While it’s been frustrating for the Mocs, who just a season ago fell short in their quest to advance to the NCAA tournament after a conference tournament semifinal loss to Furman, it was that regular-season title that provided an avenue for UTC to qualify for the National Invitation Tournament, and the team used that to win its final five games for the title.
After that was a roster flip, with five players lost to graduation and three more transferring, including All-SoCon guard Honor Huff, who is currently averaging 17.5 points and shooting 42% from 3-point range at West Virginia. Nine new players came in with hopes of building upon last season’s success.
That, however, hasn’t happened yet, with injuries and inconsistency plaguing the roster. Smith, along with guards Jordan Frison and Teddy Washington, are the only players to start at least 10 games so far, with Smith — a Bellarmine transfer — averaging 9.8 points and leading the team with 29 3-pointers made.
It’s been frustrating for Smith and the team, but perspective has to matter: Bellarmine won five games last season, which included a 17-game losing streak, so this has been nothing by comparison.
“I think that obviously we’ve had a couple losses that we aren’t feeling great about, but it’s a process and we just want to get better and get healthy,” Smith said recently. “I feel like myself personally has a level of better basketball that I can play and that I’ve done before and I know it’s there as well as a number of other guys that feel the same way.
“But the thing is, I’ve seen a lot of programs at this point, and sometimes you have guys that maybe give up or they just try to start getting theirs or they just have a bad attitude. That’s not an issue here, so that’s why I’m confident that we’ll get it rolling the way it should.”
There have been several swings in momentum this season. The Mocs picked up consecutive Division I wins against South Carolina State and North Alabama, the latter being the team’s best win to date as well as Smith’s best game, with six 3-pointers made and 18 points in the win.
They didn’t look so good in consecutive losses to Southeast Missouri and Tennessee State, but then one could argue the best they played all year came in a 14-point loss to Auburn in the Holiday Hoopfest Classic in Atlanta. But, four days later, the team played poorly in a 15-point loss at Bellarmine.
Three of the team’s six wins have come against Union, Tennessee Wesleyan and Oakwood by an average of 53.3 points, and while the team looked good in those dominating wins, the standard isn’t beating NAIA teams, specifically those with a combined 15-25 record.
But it’s where the team is. The roster remains fluid, with currently Sean Cusano the only scholarship player expected to miss the rest of the season. Freshman guard Tate Darner, who has had a solid first season, will be back Thursday, and it’s possible freshman wing Zach Bleshoy, who tore his ACL in his senior season of high school, could make his debut soon. Sebastian Hartmann could return, and talented sophomore bigs Collin Mulholland and Latif Diouf hopefully will round into form.
UTC head coach Dan Earl admits the team’s play during the non-conference start to the season has been frustrating.
“We have certainly not won games that we should have won — or felt like we should have won or what have you. We’ve had a lot of injuries and I know that sounds like excuses, but it’s been a trying non-conference for everyone involved,” Earl said last week.
“The players, they want to win as well, and some of them have been injured, which is really hard on them. Some of them have played a lot of minutes in one game and less minutes in another game, which has been hard.”
Added senior guard Jikari Johnson, “Obviously our expectations were higher for ourselves, but all we can do is keep getting better every game. We know that the law of averages is real, so we’ve got some great shooters on the team and those shots are going to keep on falling from here on out.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.
