If there was ever a win that could be credited to toughness, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team’s 75-63 victory Thursday night at UNC Greensboro would certainly qualify.
The Mocs were tougher in the second half, outscoring the Spartans 41-32 to pull away for the 12-point win that secured the program’s 13th regular-season Southern Conference championship, along with the No. 1 seed for the league tournament next week in Asheville, North Carolina.
UTC (22-8, 14-3) still has one regular-season game remaining, at Virginia Military Institute (13-17, 7-10) at 1 p.m. Saturday, but the Mocs also already know they’ll play at noon on March 8 in Asheville, facing either Mercer or Western Carolina (those teams meet in the 8-9 matchup a day earlier).
“What a great effort from the guys, right?” Dan Earl said after wrapping up his first SoCon title in his third year leading the Mocs, who have won 10 games in a row and went 8-0 in February.
“We all know how tough UNCG is and the tenacity they play with on defense, credit to them, but our guys just continue to fight and find a way. That was kind of a back-and-forth game where no one could grab real momentum, and then the guys found that spark after a couple defensive stops.