Smith, Paris earn Socon league awards

Chattanooga Mocs men’s basketball sophomore guard Malachi Smith has been named the Southern Conference Player of the Year in both the coaches and Socon Sports Media Association postseason polls while head coach Lamont Paris earned Coach of the Year honors in the coaches poll, the league office announced this past Wednesday afternoon.

Smith is the program’s first player of the year since Johnny Taylor following the 1996-97 season while becoming just the fifth Moc to win the Coaches Player of the Year award and fourth to ever claim the Malcom U. Pitt Award (media). Smith was also named to the 2021 All-socon First Team a season ago. He is the sixth different Moc in total to earn a Socon POTY award.

Other past winners include Willie White in 1981-82 (media), Keith Nelson in 199192 (coaches), Tim Brooks in 1992-93 (coaches/media) and Chad Copeland in 1993-94 (coaches).

Smith leads the Socon and ranks 17th in Division I with a 20.3 points per game average while sitting sixth nationally with 628 total points, which is sixth most in Mocs history. Smith ranked fourth in the SoCon in field goal percentage (51.0), seventh in rebounding (6.6 per game), third in steals (1.7 per game) and sixth in 3-point percentage (41.2).

Paris becomes the fourth UTC head coach to claim the Coaches Coach of the Year award and the first since Matt Mccall took honors in 2015-16. Mack Mccarthy was a backto-back winner of the award in 1991-92 and 1992-93.

Paris led Chattanooga to a league-best 24-7 overall record in the regular season while capturing a school record and national-best 12 road wins. Over the past three seasons, Paris has guided UTC to a stellar 62-28 (.689) overall record while playing to a 3319 (.635) mark in Socon play.

In addition to the pair of top honors, graduate guard David Jean-baptiste was selected to the All-socon Second Team, in each of the two polls, for the second-straight year following his noteworthy final campaign in a Mocs uniform.