The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team finished first in the Southern Conference standings last season, doing so despite a 1-2 start to league play in which the Mocs lost by in overtime in the opener, then were bitten by a buzzer-beating 3-pointer two games later.
They’ll need another strong turnaround this winter to overcome an 0-2 start to SoCon play that has them 6-9 overall after finishing a long road swing 1-4 and dropping six of their past eight games.
UTC lost 79-71 to Virginia Military Institute on Saturday, and the Mocs never led at Cameron Hall in Lexington two days after giving up a four-point advantage late and losing a back-and-forth battle at UNC Greensboro as the Spartans won 77-72.
This time, UTC trailed by as many as 19 points in the second half before mounting a comeback that included a 16-0 run from the 12:54 mark to 9:17. The Mocs trimmed their deficit to three points on three more occasions after that, but the Keydets (6-9, 1-1) made plays down the stretch that UTC didn’t.
Fourth-year head coach Dan Earl lost to VMI — the program he led for seven seasons from 2015-22 — for the first time since taking over in Chattanooga. Before Saturday, Earl had led the Keydets to their most recent victory against the Mocs, an 80-75 triumph at McKenzie Arena on Feb. 19, 2022, during a season in which Lamont Paris coached UTC to a sweep of the SoCon regular-season and tournament titles before leaving Chattanooga after five seasons for the South Carolina job.