A solid first half.
A spectacular second one.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team made 57 percent of its shots in the final 20 minutes against East Tennessee State, scoring 49 points and pulling away from the Buccaneers for a 94-84 win Saturday in front of 5,003 fans at McKenzie Arena.
The Mocs took a half-game lead over Mercer and ETSU in the Southern Conference and have three away games - beginning Thursday at UNC Greensboro - before playing at home again on Feb. 1 against The Citadel.
Tre' McLean scored a career-high 29 points for UTC (16-3, 5-1), while Justin Tuoyo added 20. Eric Robertson was 5-for-8 from 3-point range for 15 points as the Mocs shot 54 percent from the field, made 11 of 20 3s and connected on 29 of their 36 free throws.
Tuoyo, McLean and Chuck Ester each grabbed six rebounds, while Tuoyo added six blocked shots. Greg Pryor scored eight points with five assists.
The Bucs (11-7, 4-1) were led by Ge'Lawn Guyn's 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting from the floor. T.J. Cromer added 19, while Deuce Bello scored 15 and Desonta Bradford had 12. After shooting 55 percent from the field in the first half, the Bucs shot 33 percent in the second half as the Mocs switched to a 1-3-1 zone defense with the 6-foot-7 Ester playing up top.
"We've worked on that zone but haven't used it a lot," UTC coach Matt McCall said. "I felt that ETSU was a rhythm team, and their guards are so terrific at creating shots, so we wanted to change the momentum. I thought we got them off balance to start the second half, and we stayed with it."
The Mocs led 45-43 at the break and started the second half with an 11-0 run. That helped them build a 13-point lead, and the margin would max out at 14 but not shrink below seven the rest of the way.
"At halftime Tre', Greg and Eric told the team that we still have 20 more minutes to play and to not get comfortable," Tuoyo said. "We knew they'd given us their best shot and they're a tough team that isn't going to go away, so we got comfortable, came out and did what we know we could. We don't want to play from behind, so we wanted to throw the first punch and try to knock them off their feet a little bit."
ETSU took an early punch from the Mocs in the first half as well, trailing by as much as 10 points before a 20-4 run helped the Bucs take a six-point lead. They maintained that advantage until a 13-4 spurt by the Mocs that led to the two-point lead in the break.
The Mocs led 89-79 with 1:47 to go, but Cromer was fouled shooting a 3 and hit the first two. He missed the third, but an offensive rebound led to an open 3-point opportunity for Guyn. He missed and Pryor grabbed the rebound, and the Mocs made three free throws and had a Tuoyo dunk to put the game away.
"All the credit goes to Chattanooga. They played an outstanding game," ETSU coach Steve Forbes said. "They shot well, and when you shoot as well as they did, you're going to win a lot of games, so I give them a lot of credit. They went to the 1-3-1 and we got on our heels and didn't attack it right, forced shots and didn't get stops, and I thought that was the game."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.