Junior guard Jordan Frison scored 28 points, the most in his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball career, but the Mocs were unable to overcome a slow start in an 85-80 loss to UNC Greensboro in Thursday night’s Southern Conference matchup at McKenzie Arena.
The loss solidified UTC (12-18, 6-11) being seeded either eighth or ninth in the 10-team bracket at next week’s SoCon tournament in Asheville, North Carolina, where the Mocs will face The Citadel (9-21, 6-11) in one of two men’s games being played that Friday (the top six seeds receive byes into the Saturday quarterfinals). It’s only a matter of which team is seeded higher between UTC and the Bulldogs, who split their regular-season series as the road team won each time.
UNCG (13-17, 9-8) is currently tied with Western Carolina (13-15, 9-8) for seventh, with that seed set to face last-place Virginia Military Institute (6-24, 1-16), which hasn’t won since a 79-71 home victory for the Keydets against UTC on Jan. 3.
Frison’s total was tied for the sixth-best scoring output of his collegiate career. He scored 39 last season while at Division II member Pittsburg State in Kansas, one of five 30-point performances by Frison for the Gorillas in the 2024-25 schedule. Despite his big showing Thursday, the Mocs as a team struggled to build off the success of consecutive road victories in which they scored at least 90 points against Mercer and The Citadel.
(READ MORE: UTC men ride hot start to lopsided win at The Citadel)