Chattanooga forward Casey Jones (24) eyes the basket between the defense of Kennesaw State guard Orlando Coleman (24) and forward Nigel Pruitt (1), at Kennesaw State University's Convocation Center, in Kennesaw, Ga., on Saturday.
UTC forward Justin Tuoyo (5) loses the ball against Kennesaw State Saturday in Kennesaw, Ga.KENNESAW, Ga. - After winning two games to earn the Battle 4 Atlantis Mainland title earlier in the week, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball Mocs hoped they could get their first road victory of the season at Kennesaw State on Saturday.
It didn't happen.
Led by a career-high scoring performance from 5-foot-9 guard Yonel Brown, the Owls defeated the Mocs 77-69 at the KSU Convention Center, halting UTC's two-game win streak. Brown finished with 32 points.
The loss dropped the Mocs to 3-4 going into Tuesday's home game against Georgia. They were 19-for-29 at the free-throw line line. By comparison, Brown alone was 18-for-21 at the stripe, as the Owls hit 77 percent of their 44 chances as a team.
Brown has averaged 26.5 points against the Mocs as the Owls have won two straight in the series.
"We couldn't guard him. We couldn't guard anybody," UTC coach Will Wade said. "They beat us off the bounce. We've been better at guarding the past couple of games, but we weren't today, and it cost us. We got ripped off the bounce, and that's a pride thing. You have to take pride in what you're doing.
"We were really bad on every account, and they scored a buttload of points in the second half. We were disjointed, and that's my fault."
The Owls (3-4) scored 51 points in the final 20 minutes. Nearly half of those came at the free-throw line, where they went 24-for-32 in the second half. As a result, they broke open a 26-all halftime tie with runs of 12-2 and 13-1, led by Brown and a 2-3 defense that limited the Mocs' chances offensively.
"That zone kept us out of the lane," UTC guard-forward Casey Jones said. "It's hard to score when the shots aren't falling, and you can't get to the rim. I feel like we try to focus on ourselves; we try to play our game. Things didn't go our way today."
UTC was in a hole early. The Owls broke open an early 6-all tie with a 12-0 run, but the Mocs responded with nine consecutive points to trim the deficit to three and then took a brief 26-24 lead after a floater in the lane by Eric Robertson and five points from Jones, whose 22 points were one point shy of his career high, set against Wofford last season.
Delbert Love, who scored the go-ahead basket when the Owls beat the Mocs last season in McKenzie Arena, made two free throws with 14 seconds to go for the halftime tie. Nigel Pruitt had 10 points for Kennesaw, while Nate Rucker added eight and collected 10 rebounds.
Jones added nine rebounds for the Mocs, and Ronrico White scored 15 points, while Justin Tuoyo and Greg Pryor each added eight. Tuoyo had his fourth consecutive multi-block game with three.
"We just weren't good enough today," Wade said. "I apologize to the fans that came down here; it was just a poor, poor game on our part.
"We'll come up with a plan and be ready to go on Tuesday, I hope."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenley