Chattanooga fell to UNCG 85-80 in a Southern Conference matchup at McKenzie Arena on February 26, marking the Mocs’ 800th SoCon regular season game since joining the league in 1977-78. The loss drops Chattanooga’s record to 12-18 overall and 6-11 in conference play, while UNCG improves to 13-17 overall and 9-8 in the SoCon.
With one regular season game remaining, Chattanooga is now guaranteed either the No. 8 or No. 9 seed for next weekend’s SoCon Tournament in Asheville and will face The Citadel in the opening round on March 6 at 5 p.m. ET.
The Mocs trailed for nearly the entire contest and never led, with UNCG holding their largest advantage at 14 points late before a late UTC run cut it to three with under a minute left. Chattanooga shot 42.2% from the field (27-for-64), including making just over thirty-one percent of its three-point attempts (12-for-38). At home this season, Chattanooga falls to a record of six wins and eight losses, marking their first sub-.500 finish at home across their forty-four seasons playing inside UTC/McKenzie Arena.
Head coach Dan Earl addressed his team’s performance after the game: “First of all, credit to UNCG. I thought this game was going to come down to the tougher, more physical team, and they were both of those. Obviously, Neely and Younger are tough covers. They drive the ball downhill, they’re physical and we allowed them to do that over and over and over again. We talked about the first four minutes, about being ready to play. Ready to play is both moving fast and into the game but also communicating doing all the little things. For whatever reason, we didn’t do that in the start of either half.”
Earl continued on his team’s struggles early: “We don’t have everything figured out, but I would have thought that we would have played more inspired, tougher…more into it to start. In particular at the start, but really both halves. I was a little disappointed in that, and what I worry about a little bit just to be real with you is our shots weren’t falling in the first half. Three for 15 or four for 17, something like that. That sometimes seems to have too great of an effect on us in my opinion. But the first couple possessions of the game, we weren’t locked in with what you have to do.”
Junior guard Jordan Frison scored a season-high twenty-eight points on twelve-of-seventeen shooting while adding three assists and two rebounds over thirty-five minutes played; he now has four hundred seventy-six points this season with at least two games remaining.
Frison spoke about his role following another slow start by Chattanooga: “It’s obviously a team thing in how we are coming out. I’m part of it as well, coming out with these slow starts. Not moving fast and not following the scout early on. In that situation, I gonna take full responsibility. I take pride in that. I got to be better in that sense of being more of a leader to be able to get us out to stronger starts like we’ve been doing the previous two games.”
Guard Billy Smith reached one thousand career NCAA Division I points during this contest after entering with nine hundred ninety-six; he finished with twelve points—all from beyond-the-arc—and grabbed four rebounds.
For UNCG, forward Justin Neely posted eighteen points along with seventeen rebounds across thirty-four minutes—his rebound total ranks as second most by any player against Chattanooga since 2004–05.
UNCG made use of free throws throughout both meetings between these teams this season; they attempted thirty-one free throws previously before converting twenty-of-twenty-five attempts Wednesday night.
