Walking into McKenzie Arena, Abbey Cornelius can't miss seeing the banners commemorating the Southern Conference championships the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball program has won, but the Mocs' most recent tournament title was secured in 2017, a year before she arrived.
Cornelius, a fourth-year player from Knoxville, can't escape the history.
Her high school head coach at Hardin Valley Academy, Jennifer Galloway (formerly Wilson), is in the UTC Athletics Hall of Fame after helping lead the Mocs to four SoCon titles and three NCAA tournament appearances as a player. Her current head coach, Katie Burrows (former Galloway; Katie's brother Keith is married to Jennifer), won four SoCon titles and made as many NCAA tourney trips during her playing days for the Mocs.
Cornelius also can't escape the present.
The Mocs are enduring the worst season in program history, taking a 7-22 record into the SoCon tournament that starts Thursday at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The sixth-seeded Mocs face third-seeded Furman (17-11) at 5:45 p.m., the last quarterfinal of the day after matchups between top-seeded Mercer (20-6) and No. 8 Western Carolina (7-22) at 11 a.m., No. 4 Samford (12-16) and No. 5 UNC Greensboro (9-18) at 1:15 p.m. and No. 2 Wofford (16-12) and No. 7 East Tennessee State (6-21) at 3:30 p.m.
If the Mocs are going to change the perception of their 2021-22 season, the trip to Asheville is their last chance to make it happen. The SoCon tournament champion moves on to the NCAA tournament - the Mocs won a share of the regular-season championship in 2020 but were seeded second in Asheville and lost their opener - but that will require UTC to win three games in a row for the first time since taking four straight in January.
"We all committed here, we walk in and we see the banners with 22 conference championships, but I don't have one yet, so it's frustrating," Cornelius said Tuesday, the same day she was announced as an All-SoCon second-team and defensive team selection for the second consecutive season. "But for us, it's just another reason to work hard, another reason we want to change the culture and try to get back to that."
Staff file photo by Robin Rudd / UTC's Abbey Cornelius this week made the All-SoCon second team and defensive team for the second year in a row, but the fourth-year Moc is still seeking her first SoCon tournament title."What can go wrong, will go wrong" could be a slogan for the 2021-22 Mocs at this point. Three players who were expected to be on the roster never suited up this season for various reasons, a group led by two-time all-conference forward Eboni Williams. This season's top four scorers - Cornelius, Dena Jarrells, Brooke Hampel and Amaria Pugh - have missed time, with Cornelius sidelined for seven contests (all conference games) and the Mocs going 1-6 in her absence. UTC was 4-3 in the conference games in which she played, and one of those was the regular-season finale against Wofford this past Saturday, when she clocked just six minutes as the Mocs lost 84-75.
There were times when UTC was left with a roster heavy on underclassmen, including a 64-43 home loss to Furman on Feb. 24, when five of the seven players who compiled meaningful minutes for the hosts were freshmen. The only Moc to start every game was Sigrun Olafsdottir, who is in her second season at UTC. Three other players joined Olafsdottir in appearing in all 29 games: Leah Jones, Destiny McClendon and Addie Porter - all freshmen.
Burrows noted the team will be at full strength for the first time "in weeks" when it faces Furman - which also won 63-50 when the Mocs visited the Paladins in late January - but she's also aware that, in a change from her playing career, not much is expected from this UTC team this week.
"I've learned this year that you have to control what you can control, and I can't control any of the things that happened to us as far as injuries or illness," Burrows said. "We've just tried to attack it the best way we can, and then being OK with whatever the outcome is in a sense that, 'OK, we did everything we could. Now how can we make it better next time?
"It's been about striving to be better every single day and not allowing it to completely just kill me and deflate me, because everything that I feel, everything I express, these girls feel it. If I'm not on, they're not going to be on, if I'm not up pacing the sidelines, they're going to be dead and flat. So I've got to bring my 'A' game in order to get their 'A' game, and it's exhausting, and it is who I am - and I love that I am. I've always been energetic, but even in those days that I don't necessarily feel it, I've got to bring it, and I've learned that is critical in getting these guys to go."
Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Former UTC player and assistant Katie Burrows is in her fourth season as head coach of the Mocs, who are seeded sixth in the eight-team bracket for the SoCon tournament that starts Thursday in Asheville, N.C.The tournament semifinals are Friday, with the title game Sunday.
Cornelius said all this team can do is focus on Thursday, then take what happens from that point forward.
"I always want to play for the ones who came before me," she said. "So many people who have played here who have made a huge impact on my life and my game, so I try to keep that mind. But as long as we play hard and give everything we've got, I know that they are going to be proud of what we do."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.