Mocs never held lead during loss at Auburn
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team struggled in its nonconference finale Saturday night on the road, never leading in a 101-66 loss to Auburn at Neville Arena.
Now the Mocs (8-5) will begin Southern Conference play against the two teams that shared the league’s regular-season title for 2022-23. First, they’ll head back to Alabama for the second game in a row, visiting Samford (11-2) at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday in Birmingham before hosting Furman at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Furman won the SoCon tournament title to clinch the conference’s automatic NCAA tourney bid by beating the Mocs, who made a run to the league final in Dan Earl’s first season as their head coach but were denied a repeat championship. UTC beat second-seeded Samford to start last season’s tourney run.
Against Auburn (10-2), UTC shot just 36% from the field and trailed for the final 39 minutes of the contest, seemingly overwhelmed early by the Tigers’ constant pressure and length on the interior. The hosts jumped out to a 12-0 advantage, with Johni Broome scoring eight quick points inside before sophomore forward Sam Alexis got the Mocs on the board with a 3-pointer 4:39 into the game.
After his early struggles against Broome, Alexis wound up having a solid game with 13 points, six rebounds and three blocks. Honor Huff led the Mocs with 15 points, shooting 4-of-8 from 3-point range.
Trey Bonham added nine points while shooting just 2-of-12 from the field, but he did have a team-high four assists and two steals for UTC, which trailed 49-27 at halftime.
Led by Jaylin Williams’ 21 points on 9-for-9 shooting, the Tigers had 23 assists — five each from Aden Holloway and Chris Moore — and shot 56% from the field, including a dominant 52-20 edge on points in the paint. Auburn was 11-for-25 from 3-point range.
“Coach (Bruce) Pearl said after the game that they were playing on all cylinders tonight,” Earl said on the postgame radio broadcast. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have any say about it. We couldn’t get stops when we needed to. We didn’t share the ball the way we do on the offensive end, so we couldn’t stop them at all.
“But they are a good basketball team. They play the right way offensively and defensively, they compete. They share the ball, the ball moves, they were super efficient.”
Broome finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and four blocks, Chad Baker-Mazara added 13 points for the Tigers, and Dylan Cardwell had a gamehigh nine rebounds as Auburn finished with a 46-23 advantage on the glass.
“I thought we valued possessions with 23 assists and nine turnovers,” Pearl said in postgame quotes provided by Auburn. “Chattanooga beat Louisville earlier in the season by 10, and they are going to have a nice run in their league.”
This was just the second meeting between the programs, and Auburn pulled even in the series. The Tigers lost 87-75 at UTC on Dec. 29, 1991.
Auburn has one more date on its nonconference schedule, hosting Penn on Tuesday before tipping off Southeastern Conference play at Arkansas on Saturday.