Mocs Alex Bran. UTC vs. Samford March 5, 2016 SoCon tournamentSoCon tournament quarterfinals
UTC 59, Samford 54Samford (14-19)Rose 0-4 3-4 3, Peters 0-3 0-1 0, Cunningham 7-17 4-4 18, Shabazz 1-5 2-2 4, Jones-Gibson 2-7 4-4 8, M. Johnson 1-6 3-3 5, Adams 1-1 2-2 4, I. Johnson 1-2 0-0 2, Quinn 4-6 2-3 10. Totals 17-51 20-23 54.UTC (27-5)Ester 0-2 1-4 1, Tuoyo 3-3 1-1 7, McLean 7-14 1-3 16, Pryor 0-2 0-0 0, Robertson 1-4 2-2 5, Oldham 4-10 3-4 12, Burroughs-Cook 2-5 1-3 5, Woods 0-1 0-0 0, Bran 0-2 0-0 0, Ethridge 4-8 4-4 13. Totals 21-51 12-18 59.Halftime—Samford, 36-31. 3-point goals—Samford 0-14 (Johnson 0-4, Rose 0-3, Cunningham 0-3, Shabazz 0-2, Jones-Gibson 0-2); UTC 5-20 (McLean 1-2, Ethridge 1-2, Burroughs-Cook 1-3, Robertson 1-4, Oldham 1-4, Woods 0-1, Pryor 0-2, Bran 0-2). Rebounds—Samford 32 (Rose 6); UTC 34 (Ethridge 11). Assists—Samford 7 (Jones-Gibson 3); UTC 13 (Ester 3, McLean 3, Oldham 3). Turnovers—Samford 13 (Jones-Gibson 4); UTC 16 (McLean 6). Blocks—Samford 4 (Adams 2); UTC 9 (Ester 2, McLean 2, Robertson 2). Steals—Samford 7 (Cunningham 2, M. Johnson 2); UTC 5 (McLean 2, Woods 2). Total fouls—Samford 19, UTC 20. Fouled out—Adams.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Matt McCall couldn't sleep Friday night.
With the first Southern Conference tournament game of his career looming in less than 12 hours, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball coach finally got to sleep around 1:30 Saturday morning. He woke up at 4:45, did a little more work and jumped on the treadmill for his usual three-mile jog at 6 a.m.
"I was pretty fast today," McCall said. "The real record was how early I was on there."
The first-year head coach had reason to be nervous, as the Mocs were playing a Samford team that had played the SoCon's top-seeded team tough in both regular-season meetings. Plus the Bulldogs had worked the tournament nerves out of their system Friday night, having beaten Virginia Military Institute 92-85 in overtime to set up the quarterfinal against the Mocs.
He expected to sleep a little better Saturday night.
The Mocs clawed their way to a 59-54 victory at the U.S. Cellular Center that was just about as pretty as the final score indicated. They overcame foul trouble and a scrappy Bulldogs team to end a five-year streak of first-game losses in the SoCon tournament, and they will play Western Carolina in a semifinal today at 5 p.m.
The win is the 27th of the season for the Mocs, tying a school record. It was their 10th comeback win and sixth time they've come back from a deficit of seven points or more in the second half.
"I thought it was one of the more gutsy wins that we've had all year, from the standpoint that there wasn't a lot going right," McCall said. "We found a way to gut it out, and it was with our bench.
"I'm proud of the effort that everyone gave, because we didn't get distracted when nothing was going well for us or the ball wasn't going in the basket. We kept playing. I'm just really, really proud of our group."
Tre' McLean led the Mocs with 16 points and was second with six rebounds. Duke Ethridge had 13 points and 11 rebounds for his first career double-double, while Dee Oldham had 12 points and five rebounds.
Christen Cunningham led Samford (14-19) with 18 points. Dakota Quinn added 10, but the Bulldogs were only 6-for-24 from the field in the second half and missed every 3-point shot they took during the game.
Samford did most of its damage at the free-throw line, going 20-for-23. Sixteen of those attempts and 14 of the makes came in the first half, helping the Bulldogs build a 36-31 halftime lead as McLean, Greg Pryor, Chuck Ester and Justin Tuoyo each sat for most of the half with two fouls. McCall had to dig deep into his bench, with walk-on senior Alex Bran and freshman Peyton Woods logging a combined 11 minutes.
From a 38-31 deficit the Mocs used a 10-0 run - holding Samford to one field goal for the first 9:36 of the second half - to take a three-point lead with 9:37 remaining. Possibly no play in that span was bigger than a chasedown block by junior guard Johnathan Burroughs-Cook, who knocked away a Marcus Johnson layup attempt, then sprinted to save the ball before it went out of bounds. He tossed it to Oldham, who raced the ball upcourt and fed it to McLean, whose 3 cut the Samford lead to 38-37 and flipped the momentum to the Mocs.
"I think winning 50-50 balls is a huge difference in the game," Oldham said. "J.B. chasing down that block and coming out and getting seven straight stops are vital factors today, obviously, but in playing the game itself, if plays like that don't happen, we may not be in this situation right now. So I would say those are very important."
The Bulldogs remained close, tying the game four times, the last being on a jumper by Cunningham with 2:07 to play, but the Mocs ended the game on a 7-2 run to secure the win.
The Bulldogs played without center Wyatt Walker, as the SoCon all-freshman honoree had a bad ankle injury late in the second half of Friday's VMI game and sat out.
"I was not surprised at all about the way we fought, because it's been that way all year," Samford coach Scott Padgett said. "Every time adversity has hit us, we have fought harder. We might not have come up with that play or two we needed to win this game, but our guys fight.
"It's a tough one because we were right where we needed to be and couldn't come up with that one big play in the second half to get our lead."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.