Foster wants to see Mocs flying
Jim Foster wouldn’t mind his players taking in some new scenery.
The past four seasons — including three under Foster’s direction — the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team has been sent to a Southeastern Conference venue for the first round of the NCAA tournament.
In 2013, it was College Station, Texas, for a game against Nebraska. Then it was Lexington, Ky., to play Syracuse. After that were trips to Knoxville and Starkville, Miss.
Since Foster took over when Wes Moore departed for North Carolina State, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame coach has done his best to prepare the Mocs for the rigors of the NCAA tournament, trying to not only get them into the bracket but past the first round. That hasn’t happened since UTC, as a No. 10 seed, beat No. 7 seed Rutgers in Chattanooga in the first round of the 2004 NCAA tournament.
The Mocs earned their fifth straight NCAA berth earlier this month when they won the Southern Conference tournament and an automatic bid, but tonight they will learn where they’re headed for their next game.
Foster hopes it’s outside of the SEC landscape.
“These girls deserve to get on a plane and go play somewhere else,” he said last week. “There aren’t enough good teams out West — send us there.”
ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme projects the Mocs (2110) to be a No. 13 seed, playing
Kentucky in … Lexington. Creme projects Ohio State, Louisville and UCLA to be the other No. 4 seeds, so for Foster’s dream to come true, UTC would have to be sent to Los Angeles, according to projections.
The Mocs finished with just three wins over a team (Mercer) in the top 100 of the Rating Percentage Index this season.
But they played at Connecticut and Louisville, and they hosted Notre Dame and Green Bay — all locks to be in the NCAA tournament — and Indiana, a bubble team. They lost at Atlantic Sun tournament champion Florida Gulf Coast and beat Stetson, the A-Sun regular-season champion and tournament runner-up.
After all of that, UTC players believe they are prepared for anything that could be thrown their way.
“We played a hard schedule,” redshirt junior guard Chelsey Shumpert said after the Mocs rallied past Mercer to win the SoCon championship. “I couldn’t say we would have been ready for the last 10 minutes if we hadn’t did that, with the heart we had.
“I’m so glad we played those teams. Even if it meant losses, we matured from it and gained confidence.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghen ley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.