Coach Jim Foster expected two things when he put together this season's nonconference schedule for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball team.
First, the obvious: He wanted wins - and if not wins, a lot of success in other ways. But secondly and more importantly, he wanted to see what a veteran team with high expectations was made of when adversity began to hit in waves.
Although the Mocs may have not experienced a lot of the first goal, there have been signs they're on the right track for the second.
The Mocs (5-8) complete their nonconference schedule today at Presbyterian College (2-8), with tipoff at 2 p.m. in Clinton, S.C. After Tuesday's 21-point loss to No. 2 Notre Dame, the collective record of the eight teams the Mocs have lost to this season is 77-24, with three of those losses to teams ranked in the top 10 (No. 1 Connecticut, Notre Dame and No. 8 Louisville).
"This (schedule) was something we needed," junior guard Chelsey Shumpert said. "If we wasn't in this position, we wouldn't expect it later on down the road. Now it's something we're used to, and now we have to compete consistently and have our mindset at a higher level each game.
"We'll learn from this. We have to go out, practice harder every day just to know that we'll play people like that come tournament time. We'll do it every day until it comes natural; then it'll be there."
The early part of the season was brutal with 11 games in 25 days, and the Mocs went 5-6. But Foster looks at each game as an opportunity, with the defeats an opportunity lost.
"What did people do before play-by-play or color commentators told everybody how tired players were, how difficult situations are?" he said after the Notre Dame loss. "This is a game! A basketball game, so go play! It's an opportunity. You're playing the second-best team in the country. You should jump out of bed that day, you should be excited all day. There are so many drains that people self-impose that are just nonsense. It's a game that you've been playing and doing longer than anything else in your life.
"I don't have a concert pianist, I don't have someone that can play a great violin, I don't have any of them. Basketball is what they've spent their life doing, and if you can't get up and get out of bed and be excited about playing guys like this, this country's more screwed up than I thought it was."
Through the highs and lows, the Mocs have embraced each challenge. They struggled with bad finishes early, playing poorly in the fourth quarters of losses to Florida and Indiana. They struggled to get out of the gate in losses to Louisville and Notre Dame but finished strong in each case. The experience of playing some of the top teams in the country has been a wild one, but the team feels good about having learned from each experience and expects positive things on the horizon.
After this afternoon's game, UTC begins Southern Conference plays next weekend with games at Samford and Mercer, teams that beat the Mocs on the road last season.
"These teams we're playing, we understand we're not winning the games we should be winning, but we're learning from all of it and in the end it's going to work out for us," senior guard Queen Alford said. "We're being exposed for our mistakes, and that's the biggest thing about success. You've got to fail in order to be successful.
"In the end, we're going to be better."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.