Despite being out-rebounded all game long, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team stayed close with Jacksonville State due to solid offensive execution and clutch 3-point shooting Tuesday night.
Yet in the end, a rebound did the Mocs in.
Marlon Hunter rebounded his own miss and hit a floater with 32 seconds to play in overtime, and the Gamecocks forced a couple of UTC misses in the final seconds to earn a 77-75 win in the final game of the Cayman Islands Classic Mainland event at McKenzie Arena.
The Mocs (2-3) are at home Saturday for a 7 p.m. game against NAIA member Tennessee Wesleyan.
UTC was outglassed by a 38-23 margin Tuesday, with the Gamecocks - 2017 NCAA tournament qualifiers from the Ohio Valley Conference - scoring 15 second-chance points. UTC coach Lamont Paris pointed out that of the Gamecocks' 28 misses, they rebounded 14 of them, which led to extra opportunities - like the game-winner.
"They were tougher than us," UTC sophomore point guard Rodney Chatman said. "That's something that Coach harps on. We've got to compete every possession. We didn't compete as well as we could, and that lost us the game."
Chatman led the Mocs with 24 points, including a game-tying 3-point basketball in the final seconds to force overtime. Makinde London had 23 points, six rebounds and a pair of blocks, and Nat Dixon and David Jean-Baptiste scored 11 points each.
The Mocs shot 49 percent from the field and were 10-for-22 from 3-point range, their third consecutive game with at least 10 3s.
Malcolm Drumwright led the Gamecocks (4-1) with 27 points, 25 coming in the second half and overtime. After a 1-for-6 performance in the first half, Drumwright was 9-for-14 after halftime, 4-for-5 from 3. Norterbas Giga had a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds, while Jamall Gregory and Jason Burnell had 10 points each for JSU.
Drumwright's 3-pointer with 1:44 remaining in regulation capped a 14-5 run and gave the Gamecocks a 70-67 advantage. The teams traded misses on their next two possessions, but with time winding down, Chatman stepped back and hit a long 3 over the 7-foot Giga to force the extra period.
The Mocs took a 74-72 lead in overtime on a jump shot in the lane by Jean-Baptiste, then stretched it to three when London split a pair of free throws, but Burnell nailed a 3 from the left wing to tie ahead of Hunter's heroics.
"We battled. That's how we got to where we were in the game, was by battling," Paris said. "They're a physical team - they're good, well-coached - so unless you just have better players, you don't get to that point in the game without battling.
"I'm proud of that, but our mentality, we're not afforded the luxury of feeling like that's a great thing just to compete, so we have to learn to find a way to control the things at the end of the game that we can control that can affect the outcome of the game."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.