The midseason struggles that had marked a five-game road swing for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team continued Wednesday evening.
This time, though, the Mocs’ trouble came in the Scenic City, with 3,487 on hand at McKenzie Arena for the reigning Southern Conference regular-season champions’ first league game at home this year. Their struggles also played out in front of a coast-to-coast audience, with CBS Sports Network on hand for the first of multiple national TV appearances scheduled for the reigning National Invitation Tournament champs over the next few weeks.
UTC’s 78-67 loss to Furman dropped the Mocs to 6-10 overall and 0-3 in the SoCon this season. The Mocs, who have lost seven of their past 10 games and were trying to shake off a 1-4 road trip through five states outside of Tennessee, were playing at home for the first time since a 103-46 blowout of Alabama’s Oakwood, an NAIA program, on Dec. 9.
They’ll be home again for their next matchup, too, hosting Samford (9-7, 2-1) on Saturday with a tentative tipoff time of 4:30 p.m. It’s the second game of a doubleheader at McKenzie, with the UTC women facing Furman at 2 p.m.
It’s been a season of struggles for fourth-year head coach Dan Earl’s Mocs, who fell to 3-10 against NCAA Division I competition. Once again, they didn’t lack for effort, especially early on against the Paladins (11-5, 2-1), but Furman took a 39-30 lead into the locker room at halftime by finishing the period on a 15-0 run.
UTC missed its final seven shots of the half and didn’t score for the final 5:36.
“We played well in spurts, which we’ve done in some other games this year, but then we’ve had some major lulls,” Earl said. “We did a somewhat decent job on (freshman point guard Alex Wilkins), who is really good. I’m sure that had something to do with him as well, that he didn’t have an unbelievable game, but we allowed their shooters to make shots.
“We have to be better defensively and then just execute offensively.”
They didn’t do enough of either Wednesday.
UTC vs. Furman men’s basketball on Jan. 6, 2026
The lack of an interior presence hurt the injury-addled Mocs, who played again without Collin Mulholland, the 6-foot-11, 235-pound redshirt sophomore from Canada who showed so much potential during last season’s NIT run.
(READ MORE: ‘Big Maple’ helping Mocs make their NIT run that much sweeter)
Latif Diouf was back for UTC, but the 6-9, 245-pound sophomore struggled in what was only his fifth game of the season. UTC managed just 20 points in the paint and had only one basket by a post player, a layup by Makai Richards in the second half.
That led to more of an emphasis on shooting, and while the Mocs were 13-for-34 from 3-point range, they struggled to get anything going as a group inside the arc, where they were just 11-for-30.
Jordan Frison was a bright spot, making 10 of his 20 shots, including 5-for-8 from 3-point range, for a 25-point night. Teddy Washington, who has struggled at times this season, scored 15 points before fouling out. Jikari Johnson was 3-for-4 on 3-pointers and finished with 10 points. Tate Darner was the only UTC starter besides Frison with more than three points as he finished with six and as many rebounds, leading the Mocs on the glass as they were outdone 39-32.
Furman’s Charles Johnston had 21 points on 10-for-14 shooting and grabbed eight rebounds, Tom House added 17 points for the Paladins, and Asa Thomas had 16 points and eight rebounds. Wilkins’ eight points were just one more than his game-leading total for assists, and Cole Bowser reached double digit in rebounds for the visitors with 10.
Can UTC’s midseason slide be fixed before too long? Perhaps.
The team hopes to get Mulholland back soon, and while sophomore Sean Cusano is out for the season and junior Sebastian Hartmann will miss an extended period of time, the biggest problem is that there’s been no consistency to the roster of available players or how the team has played.
“My message to the team is just to keep playing hard,” said Frison, who is among multiple first-year transfers on the team. “If we play hard, I think a lot of stuff will take care of itself, rotations and things like that. If you’re just flying around, playing as hard as you can, it’ll happen.
“I’m just trying to get everybody talking and more vocal, and just trying to bring energy to the team.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.