Mocs end skid, get league win
Lamont Paris allowed himself to smile Wednesday night.
But not until the final buzzer had sounded.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball coach had just watched his team beat Samford 78-71 for its first Southern Conference win in more than 11 months, and as he was walking out of the media room at McKenzie Arena, he finally cracked a grin.
After three straight narrow defeats, the Mocs were able to execute enough down the stretch to earn their first victory overall since defeating Jacksonville State on Dec. 21. Wednesday’s success halted an eight-game losing streak.
The Mocs (7-14, 1-7) host Virginia Military Institute on Saturday in the second game of a doubleheader, with the women hosting Mercer at 2.
“It feels great to get a win,” Paris said. “It feels good for the guys. They needed that. They played really hard and well overall. They’ve had a nice stretch of four to five games in which they’ve played well. Not that deserving means anything — it doesn’t — but they deserved to win. I’m very excited for them.
“Luckily, they built up just enough cushion to weather the storm.”
UTC led 37-22 halftime and was up by 19 points in the second half before the Bulldogs (7-14, 3-5) used a fullcourt press to score 14 points off 12 UTC second-half turnovers. The Mocs’ lead shrank to 71-69 on a Demetrius Denzel-Dyson 3-pointer with 2:57 to play. James Lewis missed a field goal on UTC’s next possession, but Josh Sharkey had a floater rim out and Lewis
“It feels great to get a win. It feels good for the guys. They needed that.” — LAMONT PARIS
grabbed the rebound.
With the shot clock winding down, UTC’s Rodney Chatman drove into the lane and lofted a floater that bounced in, then after a Justin Coleman missed 3-pointer, the Mocs put the game away with a layup and free throw by Chatman and a pair of Makinde London free throws.
“We’ve been weathered,” London said. “We’ve been in a lot of tough situations, but we had a feeling it’s time, and we just have to keep attacking every game, every day the same way we did today — with focus and hustle and all the little things we know we have to do in order to win.”
London finished with 21 points and a career-high 19 rebounds, with the latter setting a UTC regular-season record against SoCon competition. Nat Dixon also finished with 21, including a 3-pointer from 35 feet out with the shot clock winding down to put the Mocs up 69-53.
Makale Foreman finished with 13 points. Chatman had 12, to go along with seven rebounds and five assists, while Joshua Phillips finished with only four points but had a career-high nine rebounds to help the Mocs outrebound the Bulldogs 55-29, with the plus-26 rebounding margin the largest against a SoCon opponent since a plus-28 edge over Western Carolina on Jan. 12, 2008.
“The SoCon’s real tough,” Dixon said. “There are a lot of good players in this league and really good teams. You know going into conference, no matter whether you have a cushion or not, it can go like that and you’ll be right back in the fight.
“I’m proud of the guys and happy we pulled it out.”
Denzel-Dyson scored 22 of his 27 points in the second half for the Bulldogs, making seven of his 11 shots and all four of his 3-point tries. Eric Adams had 11 points and seven rebounds, while Alex Thompson finished with 10.
Samford point guard Justin Coleman was held to nine points on 2-for-12 shooting. He had 28 points and six assists in the first meeting with the Mocs, which the Bulldogs won 73-56 on Dec. 30 in Birmingham, Ala.
“They looked like a team hungry for a win,” Samford head coach Scott Padgett said of the Mocs. “I thought their effort was great, and on the backboard, they dominated. We tore them up in the pickand-roll at our place, and they did a great job guarding pickand-roll tonight and made it tough for Justin to get in the paint; usually when he gets in the paint, it opens things up for everyone else.
“I thought they played 40 minutes of sustained intensity tonight, and I thought we played a half of it.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.