Bash Wieland and a mostly new University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team — at least new to the Southern Conference — are getting a crash course on the intensity of the league.
It seems every game in the SoCon is a battle, and Wednesday was further evidence of that. Only this time, the final bounce was in favor of the Mocs, who got a go-ahead layup by Trey Bonham in the game’s final seconds to defeat Wofford 83-81 in overtime at McKenzie Arena while improving to 11-7 overall this season and 3-2 in the SoCon.
The Terriers dropped to 9-9, 3-2.
The Mocs next face Furman (15-3, 3-2) at 5 p.m. Saturday at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina. The Paladins defeated East Tennessee State 73-70 on Wednesday, and along with UTC and Wofford, those teams tied for third place in the SoCon standings behind Samford (15-3, 5-0) and UNC Greensboro (11-7, 4-1), which beat UTC 78-75 on a 3-pointer at the final horn last Thursday at McKenzie.
UTC, coming off Sunday’s 91-66 home win against Virginia Military Institute, could not have scripted a worse start Wednesday, falling behind 17-3 and trailing by as many as 20 points in the first half. The Mocs did wake up from their slow start to close the gap to 46-34 at halftime, then took their first lead on a layup by Collin Mulholland that put them up 56-54 with 11:13 to play in the second half.
The rest of the regulation period included five ties and seven lead changes, with Wieland knocking down two 3-pointers in the final 54 seconds to force overtime.
There were four ties and three lead changes in the extra period’s five minutes, with the Mocs finally shaking the Terriers (9-9, 3-2) on Bonham’s layup with three seconds to go. The Mocs still had to sweat out a wide-open look by Jeremy Lorenz, with the ball bouncing off the front iron and giving the home team and its fans reason for a sigh of relief.
“Every game is a competition. Not that in other conferences it’s not, but it’s just a really talented conference and there’s rarely going to be blowouts,” said Wieland, a Bellarmine transfer who led UTC with team highs of 20 points and five rebounds.
Impressive as the comeback was, the Mocs would like to avoid needing another rally of such proportions.
“We can’t put ourselves in a 20-point first-half hole and expect to win every game,” Wieland said. “Fortunately, we obviously won this game, but we shouldn’t have put ourselves in that position in the first place.”
Bonham and Honor Huff added 15 points each for UTC, with Bonham’s six assists a game high. Huff was 4-for-9 from 3-point range while playing all 45 minutes. Sean Cusano played perhaps his best game as a Moc, with the sophomore scoring eight of his 10 points in the second half despite battling foul trouble.
Wofford had a trio of scorers in double figures: Justin Bailey, whose 22 points included 5-for-7 shooting from 3-point range, Dillon Bailey (21 points, 6-for-6 on free throws) and Kyler Filewich (12 points, six rebounds, three steals).
The Mocs knocked down 16 3-pointers (on 33 attempts) and shot 53% from the field, making seven of the past nine games that UTC has made at least half of its shots.
“Super proud of the guys,” UTC coach Dan Earl said. “Our response after the first eight minutes, I think we were a totally different team defensively, and that’s on me. I have to make sure that we understand the sense of urgency out of the gates. Some of the previous games, we played hard out of the gates, but this game for whatever reason, we didn’t.
“It was a hard-fought college basketball game, but proud of our guys for responding. We have to keep from shooting like 50-some-odd percent and being in dogfights, and that means our defense is not as good as it needs to be. We will get better on the defensive side of the ball.”
Compiled by Gene Henley. Contact him at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.