Mocs fall short in bid to repeat as SoCon champs
“I felt like the second half of the season, I got into a good rhythm and I was shooting the ball really well. ”
– A.J. CALDWELL
A.J. Caldwell and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball team went down fighting.
Trying to become the first team since 1939 to win four games in four days in the Southern Conference tournament, the seventhseeded Mocs’ bid fell just one game short as they lost 88-79 to top-seeded Furman at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
Caldwell, the senior-most member of the team, finished with 14 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, continuing his solid play in the tournament. He finished the tournament averaging 10 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists in the four games.
“I felt like the second half of the season, I got into a good rhythm and I was shooting the ball really well,” said Caldwell, who made two of the Mocs’ eight 3-pointers. “I just had a lot of confidence, and that’s a lot of credit to Coach (Dan) Earl and Jake (Stephens) and a lot of my other teammates just instilling that in me every day.”
The Mocs (18-16) struggled from the outside against the Paladins, one of the better teams in the country at preventing 3-pointers. UTC was just 8-for-25 from long range, with Jake Stephens — who finished with 25 points — hitting a pair and fellow senior Jamal Johnson knocking down four for 12 of his 17 points.
The Mocs, who would have broken a tie with Davidson for the most SoCon championships all-time (12) with a win Monday, never led after a 7-5 advantage early in the game. The Paladins, fueled by the memories of David Jean-Baptiste’s miracle 3-pointer at the buzzer of last season’s game which sent the Mocs to the NCAA tournament, built a 30-11 lead early and held off a strong charge by the Mocs, who cut the deficit to one on a Demetrius Davis 3-pointer early in the second half.
UTC loses seven seniors from Coach Earl’s first team: Caldwell, Stephens, Johnson, KC Hankton, Dalvin White, plus Grant Ledford and Ashton Smith, who are considered underclassmen but went through senior day activities.